


The Long Dark

by Anonymous



Series: Winter is Coming [1]
Category: Game Grumps, The Long Dark (Video Game)
Genre: Blood, F/M, Recreational Drug Use, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Suicidal Thoughts, Survival, Survival Training, dead bodies, the long dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2018-09-13 03:31:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 76,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9104764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Dan's heading to Toronto to meet up with TWRP in order to finish his cover album, but a redirected flight and a freak accident changes everything.Not just for him, but for everyone.





	1. The Quiet

“Nervous?”

I looked up at the man sitting next to me actually seeing him for the first time. As soon as I’d stepped onto the airplane it was like I’d developed tunnel vision.

Sit.

Buckle.

Breathe.

Not really paying attention to anything happening around me and only hoping that I looked normal and not the stressed out mess I was.

Maybe up until that point I had been holding to together, at least until the plane moved in preparation to take off and for as brave as I thought I was, now my fingers were digging into the arm-rests like they would run away, head dipped down with shallow breaths trying to count evenly, eyes closed trying to imagine instead of a large flying death can, that each of the little bumps and dips as the plane gained speed were instead a giant flying cat-bus bounding along the tarmac, preparing to take flight on a magical journey.

“Yeah…” I was able to breathe out my voice hopefully audible over the growl of the engines but if it was, it was just barely.

“First time?”  
“Oh-oh no, I’ve been nervous many times before.” I let out a little giggle, the fear making me feel a little giddy and loopy but pleased to see the guy break into a huge grin, his contagious laugh joining mine making my edge of hysterics feel a little less imminant.

“Woah hey.” His voice was calm and it wasn’t really an objection, and I hadn’t meant to, but the small hiccup as the plane lifted made me grab his arm, thankfully, he put his hand over mine he gave my hand a squeeze (maybe to get my nails out of him) his calm voice a beacon of focus. “Don’t worry too much, I’ve flow a kabillion times and well, other than catching a cold nearly every time after I land, nothing bad ever happens. These things unfortunately are kinda germ factories.”

“Ah, a cold is better than crashing and dying.” I had to close my eyes, feeling my throat drop into my stomach as I could feel myself get higher.

Another squeeze and an adjustment my hand was instead being held in his over the shared armrest, his thumb running over my knuckles as he calmly reminded me to breathe.

I heard a rustle and I had a feeling he was holding one of the vomit bags in his free hand, most likely regretting his seating assignment.

“Sorry. Sorry I know I’m being a baby.” I hissed through clenched teeth as the dipping feeling of takeoff ended and the flight levelled out for a few calming minutes.

“Hey it’s your first time, I was pretty scared my first time flying too.”  
“I’m really, too old to be acting like this.”  
“If it makes you feel better I still need to sleep with the lights on if I watch a scary movie.”

Opening my eyes I was able to look at him giving him a wry little smile.  
“Wow… You’re a wuss.”

His mouth opened, face one of complete shock and insult, almost making me feel bad except for how over the top it was as he mock yanked his hand out of mine, unable to keep any semblance of seriousness with a laugh and a forgiving squeeze to my arm.

“I’ll take that as you’re feeling better?”  
“Yeah, thanks.” It was still a shaky reply, but my death grip on the armrests had settled from white knuckles to a more relaxed but still firm hold.

“Going to Toronto?” He continued making small talk, maybe distracting me or maybe trying to make a connection.

I was okay with either, considering that he’d been nice enough to try and calm a stranger down instead of turning away and pretending that I hadn’t been there, I kind of appreciated that.  
Plus, when he smiled he was cute in a scruffy way.

“Connecting there, then heading to Halifax to see family… You?”  
“Coming up from LA to see some of my buddies in Toronto, although they’re from Halifax originally too!”  
“It’s a small world~” I said slightly in tune with the song. “Big trip then for you there eh?”  
“Yeah LA to Vancouver to Edmonton, which was just a stupid redirect because they overbooked my flight, I am so tired.”  
“Can you sleep on flights?”  
“Sometimes yeah.”  
“Would you like me to shut up so you can?” I asked now feeling a little bad for making him talk to me and putting him through my shit.

“No! No you don’t have to, I like chatting, makes the time go faster, but like if I ya—“ What he was about to say was cut off directly with the yawn. “—Fuck yawn it’s not because I’m bored. I’m just—”  
His yawn had made me yawn, which then got him doing it again.  
“Oh no don’t look at me, I’m gonna—“ This time I turned your head towards the aisle to keep him from seeing me yawn again but I could hear him let out a little sound of him doing it again as well, a sleepy chain of never ending yawns had begun.

“You sleepy too?” He asked once the mutual fit was over for the two of you, although it had helped pop your ears.

“Little bit, couldn’t really sleep last night, too excited and scared for the trip y’know? My cousin moved to Halifax with her girlfriend ages ago and now they’re getting married, I’ve never been to Halifax so I’m off to the wedding. Most of our family is in BC but I’m up in Alberta so we all don’t see each other much, it’ll be good to see people. Not totally sure who’s coming since it’s a big flight and people gotta work and Halifax is kinda buttfuck nowhere but…”  
“Who get’s married in the winter?”  
“I /know/ right? But they wanted like some ice palace kind of white winter wedding so I’ll be out there for a few weeks.”  
“What do you do in Alberta?”  
“I teach. Got my tests all done a little early, graded like you wouldn’t believe and now my kids get like three days of Christmas movies before the break.”

“Nice!” He gave a little thumbs up to that, my eye catching on his hand because something seemed a little off but I didn’t want to stare. “What do you teach?”

“High school… English, and Art. The art class has a project they can start working on for the spring semester if they want, but their winter stuff is over and graded so they are kinda free to dick around, the English kids already read a Christmas Carol and I’ve line up “A muppet Christmas Carol” for them and gave a little, LITTLE, bit of work for them to compare the book and the movie but it’s not something they’re marked on so eh~ no worries.”

He nodded grinning. “My mom’s a teacher, so I got mad respect. Do you like it?”  
“Yes and no, I never really wanted to be a teacher, oddly I just kind of fell into it and like, not to toot my own horn but, I’m just good at it.”

“Oh ho ho are we now?” He gently mocked you making me blush a little.  
“Well…” I started to say but he was making faces at me his hands up in a gentle mimic of my voice softly mocking ‘such a great teacher, I have a PhD.’

Gently I smacked his arm. “I mean, I just remember what it was like to be a student. How much it could such and how stressful it could be, but like also realizing now how much the work doesn’t really matter. It’s the joy of learning or the ability to figure things out that really matter in life. So y’know I don’t slam so hard on the kids to get a bunch of crap done that they don’t need to know, we get our required stuff done, do a lot of fun projects, and I try not to bullshit them. Especially for high-schoolers they’re almost adults and they just want to be respected like them and I remember that too. I think a lot of teachers don’t remember and that’s where you get shitty teachers y’know?”

I looked up at him feeling a little warm in the face as I could see how he was really listening to my little spiel.  
“Yeah, I feel yeh.” He grinned nodding. “You’re really passionate about that huh?”  
“Kinda I guess. What do you do?”  
“Um this and that?” He looked away scratching at his nose almost seeming evasive in his answer. “I’m in a band and do some stuff on youtube so it’s not like conventional work.”  
“Oh well, still, that’s neat.” It was a little bit of work not to make my voice condescending sounding but he looked like he was maybe 28, maybe he was even younger? “What kind of music do you play?”

If he heard my tone he ignored it instead opening up about his music.  
“It’s a comedy group mostly, I just sing and do lyrics. Right now we’ve been working on making a cover album that should be out soonish? Aiming for February or March give or take. I’m actually heading to Toronto to finish up some stuff with another band who’s been helping us do the instrumentals to a lot of the album.”  
“Oh! Well that’s really cool!” Getting more details I was a little more sold that he was actually seriously into what he did and it wasn’t just a part time after college type of gig. “What’s the name of your group, I’ll have buy a CD.”

“Ninja sex party.” He shrugged at the look I gave him.  
It wasn’t that weird of a band name I supposed and he did say they were mostly comedy.  
“The CD that’s coming out is ‘Under the Covers’ but you’ll probably have to order it online, we’re not signed to any labels so it’s hard to get it into like your usual shops, but hey if you pre-order the CD then I will specially sign it for you~” He gave me a grin with that, his voice dropping smoothly making me feel a little flutter at the flirtation but laugh because it was a silly attempt at it.

“Nice sales pitch.”  
“Thanks, I try. The guys I’m working with in Toronto are Tupper Wear Remix Party, they’re pretty big in Halifax which is where they’re originally from.”  
“I’m not huge on the indie music scene so…” I’d actually relaxed enough at this point to put my hands up and wave them around in an ‘I don’t know’ gesture. “But you seem to be getting up there if you’re working with Canadian big name band. How long have you been doing music?”

He snorted a little at the ‘Canadian big name’ since I’d said it like it was a huge deal.  
“With NSP about six years now? In general like my whole life. I can’t really remember a time when I wasn’t singing.”  
“Shit six years? Good on yeh.” I was still at a loss for placing his age, staring right at his face I could have went to mid-thirties but airplanes made everyone look like shit and this was his third leg of the trip, maybe mid 20’s? I knew I tended to look young for my age so I didn’t want to be flirting with someone who was basically a kid. “Still, that is so cool that you’re following your dream.”  
“It’s been a lot of work but man, especially these last few years have been so worth it, you have no idea.” He sighed a little starry eyed with realizing just how content he was with life. Blinking and bringing himself back to the present he looked back at me. “What was your childhood dream since it wasn’t to be a teacher?”

“Never really had one specifically I guess, I mean other than wanting to be a dragon… Wanted to be an actress, then an artist, wanted to do comics and animation for a while, then I wanted to write books, got into activism really hard in University and wanted to be a politician so I could change the world, travelled a bit and wanted to be a travel blogger but it’s a lot of work and I ran out of money so I had to put my degree to use somewhere and started teaching.”

“The perfect job it seems.”  
I gave him a quizzical look at the certainty of his statement prompting him to elaborate.

“Well you teach which is like acting, you’re on the stage of the classroom every day needing to entertain and educate your audience. You teach Art so that’s being an artist. You teach English so that’s like being a writer, or at least like being an editor to a bunch of writers. And, in general, teachers make some of the biggest changes in people’s lives. I mean it was my kindergarten teacher who really inspired my love of singing, just letting me come up to the front of the class and sing while he played guitar so you really are changing the world one student at a time.”

I stared at him slowly nodding and smiling, these were things you felt fuzzily before but it was interesting to have someone give voice to them in a clear way that made you feel more secure in your job and the choices you’d made in life.

“Thanks, y’know that really makes me feel good about my job. Maybe teaching really was always the calling for me.”  
“Just gotta work harder on becoming a dragon.”  
“Oh well you haven’t spoken to my students yet, that one I’d like to think I’m pretty accomplished at.” I joked pulling another smile out of him.  
“Oh no! You’re a scary teacher?”  
“So terrifying.”

I could feel his eyes really take me in, which the grin on his face wasn’t out of place considering that statement. I was anything but a terrifying teacher but I did like to pretend and sometimes my students indulged me.

I grabbed his arm, all the relaxation that he’d worked so hard to give me immediately dissolving as the plane giving a turbulent rattle and the lights flickered out.  
He chuckled and taking my hand again kindly, his gentle “Hey it’s okay…” fading into a look of terror equal to my own as the initial cry of the cockpit faded into perfect silence quickly realizing

 

The engines of the plane were no longer running.


	2. The Fall (Day 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> oct 11 2017: Edited chapter

If someone were to ask me what had happened after the engines had gone silent I wouldn’t have been able to tell them with any sort of clarity.

 

Brief flashes of auditory memory of screaming, screaming that was louder than any single human could make, clips of the sky where airplane should have been.

Darkness

Cold.

Cold and pain.

Shock and trauma does these things to people.

 

I sort of came to with that sensation that you get when you walk into a room and suddenly can’t remember what you went in there for, your entire existence up to that point and all thoughts suddenly vaporizing and you’re just THERE. I was already standing, trying to get somewhere, anywhere, not sure where but it’s human instinct to keep moving and to move away from things that could further injure them, so I was walking, slow and steady in the snow just plodding forward as my mind returned to my body and I realized I was following the person in front of me staggering along in the snow a few feet ahead.

“Hey!” My voice cracked, the light pain dimly making me aware that it was just one of many things that hurt but I was really trying not to think about that. The person turned around almost falling over with the effort, his eyes at first looking through me as if I wasn’t there before he finally focused blinking owlishly and confused like it was his first time to ever see me. I mean I could understand the sentiment my brain was not at full capacity either and it took me a hot second to remember he was the guy from the flight.

The flight…

“I-I-“ Blood was covering half of his face, his long fluffy hair pasted down sticky with it, I could see it dripping down off the edge of his chin and with how he was hunched over, into the snow. The red on the snow attracted my eyes, idly following the inconsistent little splatters back behind the two of us to see the path we’d both been walking on, now seeing that we had been fleeing from the now burning chunk of airplane behind you.

“Holy shit.”  
I wasn’t sure if I’d even said that out loud or not, time just seemed to stop and I could actually feel the throb of my heartbeat, a repetition of “Holy shit” repeating with every thump.

The man behind me was still trying to make some kind of statement but unable to string together enough thoughts or words to properly do so. But his stammered babbling brought me back, pulling my attention away from the wreckage to look at him, the blood now kicking me into some strangely calm mode where at least my body knew what to do even though all my thoughts were basically a mental equivalent of the emergency broadcast service on old basic cable. 

My hands reached inefficiently for my purse which wasn’t there, making me look around for it before realizing that I’d put it under the seat in front of me on the flight.  
Looking back at the wreckage, the fire burning bright, I kept grasping at the empty space where it usually was. I had a little first aid kit, really just some band-aids, antiseptic, just regular ladies stuff in my purse, but those were gone. My ineffective patting of my side eventually guided my hand into my pocket where the best I had now was a travel pack of tissues.

He didn’t move as I trudged through the snow to him, his eyes still staring blankly now at the fire, he jumped when I tugged on his jacket sleeve. 

“Hey, hey come here.” Pulling again at his arm I got him to stoop down enough for me to pull back his hair finding the source of the blood, pressing the whole package to his head. The gash was already swelling into quite an impressive lump under my fingers and I hoped it wasn’t as deep as it seemed.  
Head wounds just bled a lot right?  
What were you supposed to do to check for concussions?

Movies and books of old medical dramas trickled into some course of action.

“What’s your name?”  
“Uh?”  
“Can you tell me your name.” I softened my tone, feeling like I was talking to a child, one who was shy and I would have to coax the answers out of. It helped me to think that way, that I had to stay calm for him like he was one of my kids.

“I’m uh- I’m Dan- Yah, Dan.”  
“Good, good. How old are you Dan?”  
“36”  
“Really?” I would have honestly never guessed.  
“Y-es?”  
“When’s your birthday?”  
“March 14th”  
“Oh nice, Can you remember what year?”

His eyes moved off of my face and back to the airplane and he mumbled something, I didn’t mean to be rude but I snapped my fingers in front of his face to get his attention back, repeating the question.

“1979 We— We were in that.” His voice is weirdly calm, but then so was I at the moment, not yet in screaming hysterics he seemed like he just couldn’t believe what had happened.  
I mean neither could I but I was opting to ignore that and focus on him instead. 

He looked past me at the flaming wreak, it wasn’t the whole plane, broken apart chunks of it were littered up the mountainside, smoke coming from somewhere else far away, ripped apart mid-air and from hitting the tops of the mountains, prices of it dropped into the little valleys below, the aircraft and all those aboard scattered along who knew how far in the middle of only god knew where.

“Yeah” I looked over my shoulder briefly my voice shaking out of the gentle encouraging teacher mode into something a little tinged with a barely contained scream. “Yeah we were.”  
“Fuck.”

With that Dan tipped to the side, stumbling into me forcing my attention back to him to help keep him upright.  
/If he goes down, I don’t know if I can get him back up/

“Hey buddy, you’re okay, we’re alright yeah? Ok can you do me a /big/ favour and hold these tissues? Yeah just like that.” Gentle talking again, just one of my students, one of the kids, I had to take care of him because…

“C’mon, lets… Lets go. It’s okay lets go alright?”

I wasn’t sure where to go but while I knew that the fire was a source of warmth which in this cold was good but fire also meant gas, and that could mean explosions.  
And that was bad.

Looking around I wasn’t sure where to go anyway, I could see a small clearing with a play house sitting in the middle of a field in the direction we had originally been walking. Immediately I started toward it, houses meant people had to be nearby, and while it didn’t look like much by way of shelter, it was better than nothing.  
However as we got closer I could tell it wasn’t a kids play house but instead a hunters blind.

“What is…?” Dan looked at it, finally starting to catch up mentally to where we both were and finally able to take his eyes off the fire.

“A hunting… Thinngy.” I stupidly tried and failed to explain not quite able to remember the word but knowing vaguely what it was. 

It was in the middle of the field, an open wooden raised hut for hunters to sit in while they waited for deer to come past for them to shoot. Something that the deer wouldn’t really notice as anything except part of the scenery and the hunters would get a little shelter from the wind without an animal sneaking past them because they weren’t paying attention.

Dan stumbled on the small steps leading up into it, leaning more heavily on me forcing me to almost drag him letting him collapse onto the bench, quiet in his shock and possibly blood loss.

Maybe hypothermia too.

By this point I was shaking, jaw starting to ache as I kept my mouth clenched shut to keep my teeth from clicking together, but Dan wasn’t shaking at all, which worried me even more. 

Was his pale colour from the cut on his head, or was that frostbite already setting in?

My winter jacket was lost in the blaze, along with your scarf and hat. Everything I’d warn to the airport as winter gear I’d taken off while sitting, all I had now was the soft black zip up hoodie I’d worn under the winter layers, which wasn’t much at all.

Pulling the gloves I’d luckily tucked into my inner jacket pocket out I took Dan’s free hand feeling how cold it was even compared to mine. Blowing on it to warm it up I put a glove on him, not caring that it was far too small for his much larger hands, hoping it would at least help him keep his fingers. He pulled his other hand off his wound to adjust the fingers of the glove mumbling a soft “Thank you.” before getting distracted by the blood on his hand.

Looking at his head I didn’t even need to take over keeping pressure on the tissues. Almost black with how saturated with blood they were they were already crusted, if not a little frozen to his skull. I could only hope that the bleeding had stopped and he wasn’t having some kind of brain aneurysm as I blew hot breath onto his bloody hand and tucked it into the second glove.

It took a few moments after I sat down next to him, hip to hip, barely even feeling a tickle of shyness considering how cold we both were when he finally started shivering and looking at me, really looking.

“You, Thanks… I’m not— Fuck, I’m not usually this useless.” His words sounded thick, like he was drunk, clearly concussed which scared me. 

/When would an ambulance come? Where were we? How far from the city were we?/ 

/Would this cold and snow stop people from coming?/

Pushing those worries aside I squeezed his hands that I was holding, massaging to keep them warm and to keep my own fingers a little warm against the gloves.  
“It’s ok, you’re hurt, it’s fine, we just gotta- Gotta…” I nodded, unable to give voice to the fact that I had no idea what we had to do, but aware of the absolute NEED to keep it together since the urge to sit down and scream hysterically was right there in the back of my head waiting to be let out.  
But I had to keep it turned off, as long as someone needed me…

Screaming could come later.

Looking around the hunters blind I could see there was an arrow and a bullet on the ground, but also a small red box attached to the side of the wall right where the entrance was.  
One last squeeze to Dan’s hands and I moved off the bench to check it out not even sure what I was hoping for but hoping for a miracle.

Clicking it open my brief hope was slapped down as all that was inside was an old granola bar, a box of regular band-aids, and…

I gave the little baggy of green a sniff closed my eyes as I mentally rolled them.

An emergency stash of country-time weed.

Still I took them all, stuffing the baggy in my pocket, the granola bar looked unopened and I was pretty sure Dan would need sugar from the blood loss, if I could find something to cut his hair with to get a good look at his head maybe the wound could just be taped closed with the band-aids.

And once we were back to civilization if I could find some matches I was going to use one of the receipts in my pocket to roll every last leaf of that pot into the fattest doobie this side of the rockies because goddamn it you didn’t deserve it.

“You’re not allergic to nuts are you? Or chocolate or anything?” I asked sitting back down with Dan who was hugging himself, rocking a little still mesmerized by the fire in the distance.

“What? Oh uh, No.”

“Good, here try to eat this.” Snapping off a quarter of the bar I urged him to just nibble and take it slow. Eating a little with him to show him that it was fine for him to have some too. It was stale, the chocolate was getting that waxy buildup it did when it had melted and re-solidified and was old and cheap, and it was frozen solid, but gnawing on it and having something sweet in my mouth was helping calm me down, bring back my focus. We sat quietly for a bit, just letting the food melt into us, cuddled as close to one another as we could to keep warm, the blind not offering us much shelter but it did cut down the wind a little.

But it was getting colder and no one was coming yet.

“Here let me see your head.”

It was hard for Dan not to whine and flinch at the treatment as I poked at the tissues, not wanting to do anything to them but just checking that the bleeding really had stopped. The cold air itself was probably keeping down the swelling but freezing temperatures and putting snow onto his head felt too counter-productive to survival so I left it instead making him track my finger with his eyes to check…  
Well to be honest I wasn’t sure what it was just something I’d seen people on TV do when someone was concussed to check if they were okay or not.

“We- We can’t stay here.” He mumbled out, tucking his hands under his arms, his teeth rattling with how he was shaking, not a good thing but at least he wasn’t in the late stages of hypothermia yet, that much I knew simply from being a Canadian.  
Granted this could have also been shock. 

“It’s so c-cold. We gotta go somewhere.”

He had a point but… Where could you go?

Looking around I could see how the snow dented, there was some kind of trail, hopefully human made and not just a deer trail, leading further away from the wreckage into the unknown woods.

Looking back I could see the wreak still burning and bit my lip weighing the options.

We could stay close to the wreak and hope someone was coming soon to find you before you both froze to death.  
Or move along the trail and hope that we would meet our rescuers on their way over, or at least find something else.

Hopefully also before you froze to death.

I closed my eyes thinking, at least in the woods I could possibly make some kind of tree branch type of emergency shelter? I’d never actually done it before but I’d read about it, one of my students had even done an essay about it that had been interesting enough I could remember some of the important details.

“Yeah ok, lets go, I think that’s a trail. It’s gotta lead somewhere.”

Somewhere that was not your frosty doom were the thoughts I left out.

Using the zipper on my jacket and my nails as much as I could, scraping in blood and scratches into the wood /2 alive/ with an arrow pointed towards the trail I’d spotted, hoping that if someone came they’d see it and know which way to go.

Dan stumbled again on the way down the stairs from the hunters blind, the woman immediately at his side steadying him. He was still feeling dizzy from the hit to his head and just generally reeling from everything that was happening, his brain stuck on an eternal loop of “Oh my god” with a few “We’re going to die” thrown in for good measure. 

He was glad there was someone with him, that she seemed to know somewhat what she was doing, pointedly refusing to think of the possibility that she was making it up as she went along, preferring the delusion that she was some kind of wilderness survival expert/doctor/magician/this was all a terrible dream. Following along, happy to just be moving, doing something to keep his brain focused off of the cold, pain, and terror.

He hadn’t asked for the help but was glad that she’d tucked herself next to him, helping him balance and maybe keep just a little bit warmer between the two of them. Beyond all that there was also comfort in another person, feeling the movement of another body, taking what calm in that that he could.

It was sunny and warm in LA when he’d left, and with no intention of leaving the airports until his arrival all his winter gear for Toronto was in his luggage. Ripped jeans, sneakers that were already soaked through from the snow, his hoodie and leather jacket offered very little protection from the cold.

He felt a little bad for wearing, her gloves, some part of him even feeling guilty for getting them dirty, but he was glad he had them, his longer fingers were perpetually cold on a regular basis just in general, being outside in temperatures he hadn’t experienced since he’d moved from Jersey, he was too cold to even try to be chivalrous and offer the gloves back.

Reaching the tree-line thankfully the wind cut down taking a noticeable few degrees off how cold it was, although the shade almost balanced it out. Movement was helping, but the walk was thankfully on a downward incline, with a little less snow, a lot less wind, the path lead to another path, which after a small curse and a slip that Dan caught me from falling over from we realized the new path was no longer an actual path but, a frozen creek. 

With a small curse I looked around, everything else was up the steeper creek banks or directly up the mountain from here, making our choices pretty limited to ‘keep going’ or ‘go back’ and going back really wasn’t much of an option.  
Looking up at Dan he was just looking at me expectantly, willing and waiting for my choice in direction. I had the lead so without discussion I kept moving us forward.

I didn’t know how long we’d walked for, enough to feel warm for a time, and then return to feeling cold. The creek mouth opened up and mountains cleared way to a large flat plain, what was a large frozen lake with a little rocky outcrop in the middle hosting enough trees to give it the designation of a tiny island.

“What’s that?” Dan asked weakly, he’d moved from shaking, to warm enough not to be, then shivering again, now had stopped doing so, his body too cold and out of energy to shake anymore.

Squinting I could see through the softly falling snow a small building sticking out on the ice, looking around I could even see a few of them.

I’d been ice fishing exactly one time but I remembered the most important thing from that trip.

“Ice fishing huts! C’mon, they usually have little ovens in them for the fishermen to keep warm with.”

Sure we didn’t have any matches, or wood but one of them had to have SOMETHING.  
Even if they didn’t the huts at least were entirely enclosed without windows, so at least it would be out of the wind and snow that was starting to kick up into a worrisome downfall.

It was a little bit of a struggle, Dan’s shoes were not designed to walk on snow let alone ice, and his balance was already off, eager to get to the hut but needing to be careful the two of us slid our way across the ice and into the closest building not much bigger than an outhouse. They weren’t exactly designed for more than one person to sit in them but it didn’t matter, the most important thing was that there was a little metal potbellied stove with a log of wood next to it.

Eagerly pushing past Dan I tossed it into the stove, pulling the little bits of paper out of my pockets for tinder with my fingers crossed I looked at Dan hopeful. “You don’t smoke do you?”

His face fell and he swore.

“Maybe… Maybe there’s some matches.” The little hut had a cupboard and a small dresser along the one wall, turning Dan opened up the little set of drawers as I checked the cupboard pulling out a single frozen beer in it, looking at Dan I could see he’d come up empty-handed.

With a sigh I steeled myself in preparation for needing to go outside, a quick dash to the other huts to hopefully find matches. I jumped when Dan cried out lunging at me suddenly.  
“THERE!” I was glad I hadn’t punched him like instinct had wanted me to as he reached over my head to a little shelf above the stove where there was a pack of paper matches, well out of my line of sight but thankfully within his.

“Do you have any paper or anything I can burn on you?”  
Emptying his pockets he had a few paper receipts, in his wallet a few bank receipts and $5 in US ones. There was more money but it was Canadian, which wouldn’t burn since it was plastic, I wasn’t sure about the American money but it felt soft and it was dry. Dumping out all his pockets fully onto the top of the dresser his cellphone was pulled out from the inside of his jacket. I didn’t even need to say anything, both of us staring at it intently while he hit the middle button getting no response from the black screen, holding my breath while he held the power button, clicking at anything, a small sad sound coming out of me as I was forced to accept that it was dead.

Dan had a little bit of a harder time with that, shaking it and still fiddling with the buttons.  
“It can’t be dead… It can’t be. I charged it right before getting on the flight.”  
“Maybe it got wet? Once it dries it might work again.” I’d offered hopefully seeing how his hands were quaking while he pressed futilely at it.

It took him a few more goes before he gave up, setting it down very carefully, giving it a tight nod.  
“We’ll get found before then.” His voice was clipped, soft, containing his anger and grief at the useless bit of technology.

Crouched down before the stove I struck a match, fully understanding Dan’s anger and levels of denial as the first three matches I tried were dead. Rubbing them until their heads were gone, unable to be lit due to the elements getting to them. With held breath and prayers said to a multitude of Gods the fourth and final one in the pack took. Lighting the matchbook on fire I gently fed it all the scraps we had to get the larger log to finally catch, Dan even having to sacrifice a few old stamp cards in his wallet to the fire to get it going.

With a collective sigh of breath that we both were holding as the log finally took Dan collapsed into me. “Thank you God, oh fucking thank you.” Arms around me and his weight knocking me onto my butt from my squatting position he cuddled close to me uncomfortably so, his face in my neck, warm breath making me shiver a little while he whispered. “God I am so tired.”

Patting his back I pushed at him, forcing him off me for all his clinging. “You can’t sleep yet.”  
“Please? I’m sooo sleepy, why not?”  
“You’ll die.”

His arms tensed, the threat waking him and finally getting him to sit back onto his knees and not all over me.  
“But— But we’ve got a fire now.”  
“Yeah, but you’re clothes are still wet, and you probably have a concussion, so you gotta stay awake or else you might die.” 

I didn’t know how much of that was true other than his clothing being wet. His pants were so soaked they were dark all the way up to his long legged mid-calf. Lacking his height I could tell my underwear were even wet from trudging through the snow. “C’mon, lets get your shoes off, make sure all your toes are still attached, and try to dry out our shit.”

Dan’s brain still half frozen and partially scrambled completely believed that in the cold his toes might have snapped off without him feeling it. He couldn’t really feel anything in his feet except tingling pain which his entire body shared. 

Still on the ground and trying to stay as close to the fire as he could without setting himself ablaze he picked at his laces with numb, stupid fingers, quickly giving up and kicking off his shoes pulling off wet socks, and the gloves too so he could feel each toe, pinching them to make sure they were all there and still working.

I was able to move a little faster, spreading out my socks, gloves, alongside Dan’s socks, and shoes, placing them as close to the fire as I could while still feeling safe that it wouldn’t all light on fire. It wasn’t an open flame so it would mostly be safe, after all it was wet, but it was a possibility that if I didn’t pay attention it’d at least get singed.

Turning around I stopped breathing for a moment, my face tingling with a little added heat as I saw Dan wriggling off his pants. His leather jacket had kept his top half dry whereas I was soaked clean through, jeans, jacket, even my underwear were wet.  
I hadn’t told him to get his wet jeans off, he’d just done it, it was the smart thing to do after all. Anything on us that was still wet in this cold was going to leach heat off our already freezing bodies. But still, now with what small level of comfort and safety we’d found all those regular feelings of society that said ‘keep your clothes on, especially around strange men’ were coming crawling back, leaving me feeling a little on edge about stripping down.

After all he was a stranger, and we were alone, and…

He looked at me holding out his jeans for me to place them next to the fire, his mind finally clicking a little that stripping down was questionably appropriate as his eyes flicked away from mine before looking back up shyly, his whole demeanour reminded me of a puppy not sure if it had done a good thing or not.

/Fuck it./ I thought giving him a smile and taking his jeans to try and balance them to hang on the shelf that was above the stove, I gave him a quick glance, glad to see him politely look away as I peeled off my own things to do the same.  
I tried not to worry too much about it, if I really thought about it I’d probably saved his life and he was still in a worse state than I was with the blood loss and head trauma. If he really tried anything, looking at how skinny his spindly legs were, I felt pretty confident in the idea that I’d win that fight.

The hut was getting warmer, warm enough that removing the wet clothing wasn’t the most horrific thing in the world as it would have been outside, but in a t-shirt and underwear I was still pretty damn cold and taking over the prime real estate directly in front of the stove slowly turning myself like a spit-roast to try and keep all sides of me evenly warm while Dan instead had settled himself on the ground as close as he could, actually going through the process of checking his frozen toes to make sure they were all there. My feet had been fine, better boots keeping them warm, his were pale, probably frost bitten at the tips.

He made a pained noise when he touched the smallest toe on his left foot, it was discoloured compared to the others. Attracted by the sound I finally looked at him crouching down by his feet. 

“You okay?”  
“Yeah, it just-“ He touched his foot again trying to wiggle the toe and only making that same sharp sound.  
“May I?” Pulling his foot into my lap closer to the fire where I could see a bit better.

Touching his big toe and giving it a squeeze I established that it was only the smallest toe that hurt and he had a hard time wiggling it, luckily while tingly his other toes had feeling and movement in them.

“Might be broken.” Was all I could offer giving up his foot.  
“Yeah I think so too.”  
We sat in a moment of silence then while I wracked my brain over how to deal with a broken toe. I could vaguely remember an episode of house where someone had broken a toe and developed some kind of infection but weren’t in a position to get to a hospital and they were getting sick to the point of dying…

“Here.”

I jumped as something hit me. So caught up in my own thoughts and still refusing to look at Dan directly, embarrassed at my state of undress, I hadn’t noticed when he’d taken off his leather jacket until it hit me.

“What? No, dude you’re the one with possible hypothermia, keep that on.”  
“Nah I’m okay, you take it.”  
“That is like, 500% most likely the hypothermia talking. Put your jacket back on.”  
He frowned in a way that was more of a pout and crossed his arms refusing the jacket. “Nuh-uh.”  
“Nuh-huh” I shot back just as childishly.  
“Nuh-uh to infinity, you touched it last, now it has your cooties.”

That made me snap, laughing at his childish antics rolling onto my knees to crawl closer to him trying to make myself threatening, a hard feat considering the grin on my face now.  
“Jayzuz fackin’ christ almighty!” I cursed at him coming closer and forcing the jacket back into his arms, careful not to hit his head or be actually violent at all. “Here, put it on and then I’ll sit with you and we can share it okay?”  
“It’s not very big…”  
“Final offer or I’ll fucking toss you outside and take all your clothes.”

Dan’s pout turned into a look of shock. “Well!” Putting his jacket back on with an indignant huff of “I never” the little smile on his face let me know there was no anger in it.  
Scooting as close to the stove as he could stand to be without cooking himself, I crawled between his legs with a level of certainty I didn’t normally have, putting my back to his chest all the while listening to him complain about how I was; “Such a mean lady!” and “You swear a lot for a teacher.”  
Even though I could tell he was teasing, his voice soft and with no real anger to it, I gave him a gentle elbow in the ribs. 

Dan was careful to keep his hands to himself letting me be the one adjust his jacket draping it partially over my legs and part of his, the rest of him covered by my body.

“Dude, clearly you don’t know many teachers. As soon as the kids are gone it’s nothing but shit, piss, fuck, cock-sucking, motherfuckers from the lot of us.”

I was trying to joke now, stay light, it was forced and awkward because I was pretty aware that I was half naked laying on a man I barely knew, still mostly frozen, scared shitless.

I let the silence lag between us until I felt his leg twitch, Dan suddenly taking a deep breath, making me realize he was starting to doze off.

“Hey, talk to me, don’t fall asleep.”  
“But I’m sweepy…” He whined in a cutesy voice his head dipping to touch the top of mine, I bobbed my head to jar his chin off of me to get him awake.  
“C’mon we shouldn’t fall asleep yet. It’s still too cold.”  
“Ok, ok. What should I talk about?”  
“Um. Tell me about your life.”  
“What about it?”  
“Start at the beginning and work your way up from there?”  
“Uhhhhh jeeze.” He made thinking noises finding the task of an entire life story maybe a little too daunting a tale.  
“Well, what about your kindergarten teacher who got you interested in singing? Start there, tell me about them.”

He let out a sigh and started to talk.

-

I’d laid my jeans too close to the fire.

The light and strangely sweet smell of burning denim woke me up from the light doze I’d fallen into listening to Dan talk. I was awake enough to ask questions, and he was funny, one tale leading into the next, into the next. Probably a terrible idea, but we’d split the beer I’d found, making a point to boil it just for the sake of having something warm even if it did taste like hot piss. With the added social lubrication of a bit of alcohol the conversation was easy, and he was really good at spinning stories and keeping things flowing, to the point that he had spoken himself into a small spell of coughing, his voice starting to rasp by the time I’d noticed the added smoke coming from my pants.

Jumping up I yanked them away in time so they were not on fire, just singed a little darker, but at least thankfully mostly dry.

Dan’s pants had fared about the same, the bottoms now a little crunchier than before, some of the frayed edges along his heels now burnt away, but dry enough for the most part. A good thing too since the fire was burning down to embers, the cold starting to creep back into the little hut.

We were desperate for more wood, but we did not want to go outside. Even a moment of opening the door would mean more cold air in the room and if we left who knew if we’d be able to find anything else. 

Between the two of us, we’d kicked both of the wooden drawers into small enough pieces to jam them into the little wood stove, going so far as to kick the door of the small cupboard into shards and rip the little shelf off from above the stove too. 

Fire now at a safe level that we were warm again, standing on my toes at the door as Dan settled back down on the ground, I peaked out the little window on the door that was letting the light in seeing that it was dimming even further, the snow was getting heavier outside, night was coming, maybe not soon but soon enough, and without any tools there wasn’t much else to dismantle in the hut to keep the fire going once the scraps we’d created were gone.

But there were other huts.

I put my head against the door and made a disgruntled noise.  
“What’s up?”  
“Okay so… I’m going to pop over to the other hut we saw and see if they have anymore wood or anything we can break down into wood.”  
“Oh, ok I’ll come too.”

“No,” I sighed, as much as I wouldn’t mind the company and it might have been faster with the two of us, his shoes were still wet, his toe was not helping his foot. (I’d had to do most of the kicking to get what wood we had) and I knew- “There’s no reason for us both to get cold and wet, I need you to stay awake and make sure the fire we have doesn’t go out. Look, you can see that one hut from here, I’m just going to that one. If I’m not back in like an hour then come try to find me or something.”

Dan had gotten up and was looking out the window too, frowning and chewing at his lip like he was going to argue. Instead he pulled off his leather jacket.  
“Okay… Okay we do need someone to watch the fire but take this.”

It wasn’t exactly hot in the hut but it was certainly better than outside and the leather would keep you dryer at least.

I took it without complaint, taking my time to put on my shoes and bundle myself up as much as I could, not wanting to leave but knowing I had to.

The snow had gotten worse, windier and thicker, I could vaguely make out the second fishing hut but even in the few moments between looking out the window at it to now had gotten harder.  
A full storm was settling in, if there was no wood in there, I knew I would have to get to the little island in the middle of the lake, the closest tree’s to us, and hopefully find enough twigs and various things to keep the embers going for a few more hours and then…

Then…

Not thinking about that, I trudged forward.  
Now that my body had been warmed, and I’d been given it a moment to rest I was feeling all the pain from the crash that I had missed before.

With our pants off Dan and I had both watched and commented about how as our legs thawed out, colours started blooming into welts from the crash impact. The hard work of breaking down the wood in the hut hadn’t been easy on my knees or muscles, and now tense from the cold each step was agony, I was just thankful that nothing felt like it was swollen to the point of worry, just enough that any other day I would have loaded up on pain killers and stayed in bed for at least a week.

Honestly my plan once we got rescued…

With a yelp my feet snagged hard and I hit the ground, tripping over something hidden in the snow right before I reached the hut.  
On my hands and knees I looked back and at first all I saw was a toque.

Puzzled I reached for it, not having a hat was bad out here, I knew that most heat was lost from the head and where it came from didn’t even cross my mind until I tugged it free of the snow only to see that under it was hair.

A head.

A body.

 

It was like before.

When I’d first seen Dan in the snow bleeding.

It was like something inside my brain just turned off. That all those regular reactions that you normally would have, screaming, crying, throwing up, just existed in a little box that my brain went “Not today” and put up on a high shelf so that I could deal with what was happening here and now.

It was a very surreal feeling, like I was there and not there.

I played video games when I was younger. 

RPG’s like Morrowind, World of Warcraft, things like that were my favourites. You get used to a certain set of actions when you play a lot of games, that part of me seemed to be most in control, treating this like a game which told me to “Check his body for loot!”

So I did.

Pocketing the hat I pushed the snow off the body and shuffled through it’s pockets. 

Some scraps of paper (more tinder, keep), a wallet with Canadian money in it (useless plastic, toss) the jacket was frozen solid with blood and one of the legs was missing off the pants, probably someone who’d fallen from the airplane.

At least I got a sweet toque.

I made it to the hut before I had to stop, the ramifications of what I’d just done scratching at the thin distance that I’d mentally placed up.

The beer from earlier tasted about the same the second time around.

Moving again I pushed into the second hut, almost identical to the first only it was missing the main door, thankfully not much snow had found its way in and it was warmer from the lack of wind, but we’d lucked out getting the hut we had. Even with the little stove in here there was no way it would be able to hold the same level of heat.

But I’d gotten extra lucky here in other ways.

Two dry chunks of wood sat in the stove already, three newspapers stacked under them, waiting for someone to come and light it. In the drawers I found a chocolate bar, a box of crackers, a box of dry wooden matches, and in the little cupboard of all things.

A hatchet.

My mind immediately remember a book, not from classes that I taught but from my own days in school. A story of a plane crash and a boy surviving with not much more than the very same tool, and his own determination.

In hindsight I would have called this some kind of an omen, at the time other than a feeling of misplaced nostalgia I thought nothing of it beyond gratitude.

I didn’t have the pockets to take everything, especially the wood, but I also didn’t want to make a second trip.  
Pulling out one of the drawers I stacked all my prizes into it and placed it just inside the door so that I had space to work. Using the hatchet I was able to hack apart the second drawer much easier than I had the drawers in our current hut, the cupboard door twice as easy being able to chop around the bolts holding it together instead of having to force it off. 

I was getting to work on prying the shelf above the stove off when you heard a thump on the side of the small hut making me scream and drop the hatchet.  
Scrambling for my weapon, braced and ready for attack I pushed my back against the wall furthest from the entrance and the noise, listening as the rasping thump tapped around the hut until it reached the door, bracing myself to strike.

“Woah!” 

Dan saw the weapon in my hands, poised and ready the moment he looked inside, immediately holding his hands up, not meaning to have startle me and REALLY not wanting to scare me now. 

“MotherFUCKER!!” I rasped at him my voice crackling with a painful rasp making me realize that it wasn’t just food we needed to last the night, but water too. 

“Sorry, sor- FUCK!” He stepped forward and nearly bit it hitting his foot on the box of wood I’d placed there. Leaning on the door giving himself a moment to hiss his pain away before he spoke again.  
“It’s starting to get darker, I threw the last of the wood on the fire and we really need more.”

I pointed now with the little axe to the pile he had hit, broken bits of wood, hidden under that a few other treats to help get the two of you through the night. 

A part of me had been gearing up to take down the entire hut to use all of the wood, anything I could chip into chunks and take back. Lost in my mind, letting the meditation of hard work warm and blank myself to everything else happening.  
Blinding me to the time or danger of how dark it was getting, or how my hands were locked up with how cold I was.

“Help-” My voice cracked again, tongue feeling swollen and sandy in my mouth conscious feeling came rushing back to me. “Help me carry this stuff.”

 

Each of us hefting an end of the box we trudged back as fast as we could to our tiny makeshift camp. I pushed my side of the box, forcing Dan to take an angle that skirted the snowdrift I knew was a body. Dan didn’t say anything, not even looking at it and covered with a fresh layer I assumed maybe he hadn’t seen it, hadn’t seen that I’d patted it down so callously.

Distantly I wondered what was wrong with me, but those were thoughts for another day.

Getting inside thanking the stars that the fire’s embers were still going Dan carefully fed the the flames with smaller scraps and carefully got one of the fresh logs going, leaving me to strip back out of my wet clothes and hang them up again, this time a little further from the flames. My pant legs were the only thing that needed drying thanks to my better boots and Dan’s jacket.

As Dan pulled off his own shoes, still wet from before and now just coldly steeping water back into his socks, I went digging through the drawer to pull out the box of crackers and the little chocolate bar.

Dinner.

I shook the box of crackers, my throat feeling tight at the thought of eating them.

“What’s that?” Dan asked to which I just held the box up more so he could see. “Oh fuck yeah, are there crackers in there?”  
Nodding I couldn’t even talk, my mouth too dry.

Dan caught on.  
“Hey, I melted some water in the beer can, I uh, well I don’t think it boiled but it’s better than nothing I hope? Like the snow-“  
I took the can from him and started drinking the warm, sour beer flavoured water before he could finish “-is fresh”

It wasn’t the most delicious or refreshing thing ever, but it was pretty damn close.

“Ahh… Fuckin thank you.” I sighed, my thirst not entirely quenched since the can hadn’t been full, but enough to sooth it.

“We’ll have to melt more, I mean…” He looked at the door, nothing but dim whiteness to be seen through the window, “I guess- I guess the snow must be keeping the rescue people away.”

His voice was quiet, realizing and accepting that we still hadn’t been picked up yet even though it must have been at least 4 or 5 hours since the crash.

I didn’t know what to say then, holding the can in my hands and staring out the tiny window too my mind going a million miles a moment thinking of too many things that I was basically thinking nothing.

One small worry echoing the loudest.

‘they’re not commin-‘

Dan’s hand on my shoulder made me jump, his gentle smile despite how tired his eyes looked. 

“We’ll be ok.” He squeezed my shoulder, pulling me closer to give me a hug. I sighed, leaning into him, taking what comfort I could. 

“Yeah, we’ll be okay.”

-

Without telling him where I got it from, I gave Dan the toque. Pulling it out of my pocket it was pretty dry already. Helping him carefully put it on over his wound and the crusted tissue holding it together to keep his hair out of the way and add a layer of protection on his wound as well as from the cold.

In return as I relaxed by the fire, Dan cut the top off the can very carefully with the hatchet, working to use it to boil snow that we drank with the crackers, using the empty cracker bag to store extra water in so we weren’t constantly having to open the door through the night to get more and waiting for it to melt, and boil over, and over again.

Keeping the stove at a low burn I still worried about the wood, and since it wasn’t like we had anything else to do we took turns working on cutting up the cupboard and drawers inside the hut to feed into the fire.

As the night went on I read the newspaper articles out loud by the fire, my eyesight better for it although I couldn’t read much by the dim light. It was old news anyway but, it did give us an estimate of where we were considering they were old copies of “The Winnipeg Sun” I could place us in Manitoba at least. But saying we were ‘somewhere in Manitoba’ was like saying someone was ‘somewhere in Mexico’ or ‘Somewhere in Italy’  
Each province was so large just because it was a major paper didn’t mean we were anywhere near a major city.  
I knew nothing about Manitoba in general and tended not to read ’The Sun’ since it tended towards slightly trashier news than other publications.

Dan made a joke about ripping out ‘The Sunshine Girl’ to keep it for later.

“You’d /better/ keep her in your pocket I will give you snow-balls if you try to crank one out tonight.”

“I will have you know that I am a gentleman~” He teased back looking a little closer at the page. “How old are these ladies?”

“I dunno, probably 16.”

I was a little glad that he proceeded to flick the page into the fire with a grumbled “Well shit looks like I’m going to hell.”

Laughing I snuggled back up next to him as he settled down admitting that you did have to be 18 to be one of those models but further teasing him because “Aren’t you like 40?” getting him to turn on me since, wheedling my age out and him being mock offended that I’d poke fun at him since I was about the same age myself.

While it didn’t get very warm in the hut that night, the wind whistling outside as we slid in and out of consciousness to keep the fire going and make sure we were both alright, the warmth I got from Dan was enough to keep me feeling safe through the night, and the terrors of what we’d been through at bay.


	3. The Hope (Day 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited October 12, 2017

Dawn broke and the snowstorm cleared into a clear brilliant blue.

Too damn chipper considering everything that had happened to the both of us so far.

Without the falling snow we could see further, taking in the mountains and the entirety of the lake we were in the middle of.   
It was a tiny one, probably not even all that deep in the summer, but I was willing to bet, based on the mountains, that it stayed ice cold from glacial runoff. Small cabins were dotted along the shoreline, a chunk of the plane had landed on some of them, rendering them useless burned out husks.

But we could see in the distance something that gave you the biggest burning sense of national pride and hope.

A Canadian flag flapping gently in the breeze.

“Look!” I grabbed Dan’s arm the moment I saw it, giving him a shake that made him groan, the both of us were painfully stiff from the night on the cramped space, hard wooden floor, all on top of the muscle ache from working on chopping wood, and the crash itself. “That’s gotta be some kind of ranger station. Someone’s gotta be there! C’mon lets go!!”

I took off pulling at Dan to run with me, even with his longer legs he was not moving too fast as his body protested, but it wasn’t like I was moving much faster. My entire body was one large bruise, no dangerous levels of internal hemorrhaging as far as I could tell, but every movement hurt, there wasn’t a joint on my body that didn’t feel locked up and even new areas that I didn’t know existed now hurt. 

Dan hadn’t complained but his broken toe had swollen in the night, he put on a brave face when he had to jam his foot into his shoes that morning but there was a prominent limp to him now and I couldn’t leave him behind as with every step he was leaning a little heavier on me.

Sleeping in short shifts on the floor hadn’t done either of you any favours either, and it wasn’t as if I’d forgotten the weed I’d found as a possible relief to our mutual agony, only there was not a scrap of paper that didn’t go into the fire the night before. The need for heat was far more pressing than the need for possible pain relief. 

Lurching along like a pair of frozen zombies it took us three times longer than it would have taken anyone else to walk across the lake even though we were rushing as fast as we could.

Once we made it to the shoreline and struggled up the small hill to get to the cabin I could feel a creeping sense of dread.

This must have been a main ranger station for this area right? Where were the cars? The rescue crews? 

The other passengers?

“It’s… Closed for the season.” Dan whispered looking at the large sign outside the building as we finally reached the front poarch. 

The original sign was old, a faded ‘CAMP something LAKE’ a mystery as to what the name of the place was as weather had faded the name away.

A smaller sign was above it, slotted into the wood saying “Closed for the season.” an indication that told to two of us that no one would be inside, and with no cars or movement on the outside that no one had arrived to assist in the flight rescue either.

Dan’s face looked even more tired, the energy we had when we’d seen the building drained from him, his weight leaning even more heavily on me.   
He looked like he wanted to curl into the snow and cry.

“There- There’s gotta be a phone inside. Or a radio, something y’know.” 

I tried to sound perky, giving his side a squeeze, leading him up the steps to the door, trying to keep my own painful groans to a minimum as each step felt like a monumental feat to get up.

Dan followed obediently but his head was down looking absolutely broken. “It’s gonna be locked, how will we get in?”

I gave him a puzzled look, I mean the door looked like a pretty solid wood but…

“This is Canada?” I said slowly like it was the most obvious thing in the world, and pushed open the unlocked front door.

I mean either it would be open because so many people tended to do that, or we’d just break a window.

It was not the ranger station I originally thought it was and instead must have been the councillors office, or registration area for whatever camp this was. As we walked, looking over the high beamed roof and open wooden interior my eyes were immediately drawn to the front desk with not just a phone, but a radio perched right on top. With a gleeful “Phone!” I slid out from under Dan’s arm, hurrying around the counter to grab at it…

And got dead air.

I stood there for a moment, dumbfounded at the unexpected silence. Dan made a noise as he flicked lights by the door, the power clearly out. While I thought phones ran on a different line, it was possible that the plane had hit the phone and power lines leaving this whole area completely cut off.

“Fuck…” I started soft, looking at the radio and realizing that without the power, that it too would be useless. “FUCK!” 

Throwing the receiver down, I picked it up and smashed it against the counter cursing more as I took the whole thing and threw it across the room with a screamed out frustrated “FUCK” finally falling into silence my breath heavy and chest tight with panic.

 

I blacked out a little in that rage, I couldn’t see anything, couldn’t hear anything except my rasping breaths and thumping heart. Looking up at a small sound that was not me I jumped.   
In that breakdown I had completely forgotten that Dan was even there, his back pressed against the closed door, quite concern written all over his face, and maybe a little fear.

“Are—“ He started to ask but I held up a hand silencing his question so I could close my eyes and just breath, count to 10, reassuring myself with a mantra of “It’s okay.” repeated over and over again in my head before I could drop my hand.

“I’m sorry.”

Dan pushed off from the door, his hands slightly up to make himself look at non-threatening as possible as he slowly limped towards me, his voice calm and friendly.  
“Girl, hey, it’s okay. You’ve been holding it together more than I have.”

He made it to the reception desk, coming around and brushing the side of my hand with the tips of his fingers, slowly making that connection with me to bring me back from whatever edge I was on.  
“I’m sorry too, you’ve been working hard and I know we’re gonna be fine until rescue comes because I know you’ve got it in you. I believe in you Baby.”

Dan’s hand over mine, I let out the breath I was still holding in, letting go of the anger and accepting for at least that moment the situation we were in. 

“Baby?” I looked at him, eyebrow raised.  
“Oh uh… Sorry it’s a habit.”  
I drew Dan’s fingers into my hand giving him a reassuring squeeze and a shy smile.  
“It’s fine. And- And you’re right, rescue is coming, it’s gotta be coming soon, and until then well, now we’ve got this place.”

For all my false pep looking around I was still worried.

The place was huge, which meant it would probably be hard to heat, especially with the power off. Which looking now at the layer of dust on the desk coupled with the level of spider webs along the roof and over everything else.  
I had a feeling like “Season” this camp had been closed for had been longer than just this most recent past summer.

But it would be on a map right? A flyover to find the crash would spot it and obviously make this a point to get to as fast as possible.

But what had taken down the plane in the first place? How bad had last nights snowstorm been? How far was the nearest town and did they have the equipment to deal with this scale of rescue? What if this place wasn’t on a map? What if no one ever found us?

“We-“ I tried to ignore all the budding worries in my head, instead following the advice I gave my kids to take your problems one step at a time and work through their thoughts. “We should-“

Step one, step one was… Step one was…

Taking a deep breath I pulled my hand from Dan’s and stepped back to look around more, stepping back again, and again, until my back hit the wall and felt my legs just give up, sliding down absolutely drained.

I was cold, everything hurt, I was tired, and my brain was on repeat   
/rescue isn’t coming, you’re going to die out here./

Dan’s distant “Woah hey!” As I went down wasn’t what broke me down, it was feeling his hands on my shoulders that I realized I was crying and the wash of embarrassment and shame at it made me pull away from him, drawing up my knees to hide my face while I tried to stop.

Distantly I heard Dan talking. “Oh, oh baby, no it’s okay, it’s okay!” tensing up as I could feel him pulling at me, hugging me close and rocking me back and forth trying to comfort me.   
I felt humiliated at my loss of control, I was an adult, I should have been dealing with this better. But his touch just made it worse, I wasn’t used to the comfort, I’d been single for a long time, and my family wasn’t entirely the huggy sharing your feelings types of people. Emotions like this scared me, made me think that I was breaking down.

This was all weakness, that box of emotions I’d put on hold, a box that I put a lot of things in over the years was cracking open and I didn’t know if I could keep it shut anymore, and once all of that came out, the fear, the terror, the loneliness… I didn’t know if I would be able to make it back from that place and Dan’s hug was softening my grip on the lid of it.

Still, as I struggled and sobbed he wasn’t about to let go, mumbling kind things and hopeful phrases, his own voice becoming harsh while he started to cry, either in sympathy or in his own fears while he rocked. His kindness opening me up until I was clinging to him, whispering harshly-   
“I don’t want to die”   
Against his neck while he tried to assure me that wasn’t going to happen, that we were safe, that things would be okay.

“We’ll be fine, you’ll see, we’ve got this big cabin, people will come! it’s gonna be okay.” He said over and over until maybe we both believed it.

Emotionally drained I let myself drift, wrapped up feeling safe in his arms, exhausted in every possible way we both dozed. A dangerous thing to do in this weather, Dan must have realized it first since he jostled me slightly.

“Feel better?”  
I nodded against his chest, still a little embarrassed at my outburst but I did feel a lot better now. My head clear and more focused.

“Atta’girl. We’re going to be fine, I know it. And I mean push come shove I’m here. I mean I’m kinda skinny, but you can totally eat me if it comes to that. I 100% give you my blessing.”

I let out a sharp bark of morbid laughter at his dark humour, hearing a tiny titter of his own joining mine as he kept making slightly off colour jokes about cannibalism, fava beans, and if he would taste funny since he was a comedian.   
Snuggling closer to him for the warmth and the comfort of just another person, there was an itch in the back of my mind reminding me how he was pretty attractive, wondering if he was single, how close he was, how comfortable he made me feel. 

But now was really not the time.

“Okay.” I sighed pushing myself up, feeling clear and back in control “I’m okay, we got this.”  
“Of course we do. So what’s the plan?”

“Well…” Standing up I put my hands on my hips and took a breath looking around the room and really accessing the situation talking out loud.   
“Okay so, right now we have no supplies… And it’s cold.”

I didn’t even need to look at him to see the ‘no shit’ on his face.

“I think the most important thing right now is getting a fire going and making sure we’ve got enough wood to make it last just in case we need to stay another night.”

“If there’s enough wood here, do we have to go outside?” Dan had stayed on the ground while I spoke, looking very much like he didn’t want to get up. I couldn’t blame him, for all that he had been reassuring me and keeping me together, he was in worse shape than I was.   
Both of us were running on little to no sleep, but blood was still crusted in chunks to his hair, face, and clothes, even soaking through the toque I had given him the night before. His poor foot was also not in a condition to be walked on.

“I should go back for the hatchet at least, and maybe cut down some of the low branches that are nearby in case we need them tonight. I figure I can maybe stomp an S.O.S in the snow outside, that way if there is a flyby then they might see me or see that.”  
“Oh shit yeah, fuck.”  
“I mean they’ll probably see the smoke from the stove but there might be smoke from the plane still.”  
“Or other people.”  
“Yeah, or other people. Okay so yeah, step one. Wood, then fire. Then…”

My brain stalled a little, thinking too far ahead scared me because we didn’t really need to scavenge for that much food, not if we would be rescued by tomorrow at the latest. 

And if we weren’t rescued tomorrow.

“We’ll get to that after we get a fire going.” Dan popped me out of my head. “One thing at a time right?”  
“Right.”  
“But…” He looked at his hands, like he felt guilty to be making the request. Can I— Can I have just like, five more minutes here?”  
“Oh god of course!” I squatted down, not like I had to do this with my students but I kind of hated looking down when I was talking to someone. “Look, you’re hurt, so don’t force yourself to keep up. I can do the outside stuff and when you’re feeling up for it you can scope out the situation in here.”  
“But what about my fragile male pride?”

I closed my eyes, not able to hold in my grin at his stupid joke.  
“Buddy if you weren’t already hurt.”

Standing up I moved toward the door, stopping as I spotted a plush chair in the corner. It was dusty as heck but I pulled the cushion from it and tossed it at Dan. “Put your foot up and I’ll be back soon okay?”

-

Dan heard her go, unable to see anything except the top of the door swinging open and shut from behind the reception desk. But he did as she said, placing the cushion under his foot for a few moments before a combination of that male ego and the fact that he was cold and his butt was starting to hurt way too much got him to struggle to his feet.

Leaning on the front desk he started putting all the things that he could see on the counter so he’d have a neat little pile of all their supplies, hopefully by the time she came back.

There wasn’t much on the desk, a few newspapers in the corner, an empty notebook in one of the drawers, some pens and pencils and a few assorted scraps of paper. A book on basic shooting safety, laws, and rifle care was on the bookcase behind the desk. 

Behind the reception desk was another room with a backdoor and a metal shop table probably used for fixing things. Sitting on top was a storm lamp that Dan gave a shake and could hear the fuel still sloshing around in it. He had no idea if it would work, or for how long. Hooked to the wall above the table was a single lonely screwdriver that he pulled down as well.

Inside a small drawer attached to the table was a little bottle of lantern fuel that was thankfully unopened, putting next to the lamp, Dan kept emptying the drawer finding some hooks and fishing line, and plastic containers of BBQ lighting fluid. Carefully feeling around to the back of the drawer to make sure he hadn’t missed anything he put them all in a line from biggest item to smallest somewhat feeling better after doing so.

He wasn’t entirely sure how to refill the lamp, he’d seen it done before by a friend but didn’t exactly trust himself to do it either. 

Figuring they’d cross that hurdle if they came to it Dan looked to the door seeing a white metal box with a red cross on it attached to the wall next to it.

“Aw fuck yeah” Opening the kit Dan saw he’d hit a pretty good jackpot.  
This must have been a camp for kids or just a pretty posh camp in general, there was some antibiotic spray and creams, ibuprofen painkillers, some basic allergy medication, even an epi-pen, along with a glorious assortment of bandaids and wraps for sprains.

Dan pulled it all out, lining it up on the work table so that it was all there to see. It was tempting to just give up then, take a few painkillers, maybe lay on the floor and put his feet up on the chair in the main room.

He took two ibuprofen, just to get the swelling in his foot down, help with the pain. It was hard to get them down dry, grimacing as he could taste them while he rolled them around his mouth trying to get them wet enough to swallow. He didn’t stop there though, he wanted to have everything set out in one place. That way if they needed it, or if other survivors showed up, it was all at hand, laid out.

Heading over to the little area with shelving that seemed like it was a kitchen Dan passed by a little potbellied stove almost identical to the one that had been in the hut. While it had done an alright job of keeping the hut warm it didn’t seem like it was big enough to fully heat this drafty place, especially not from the full onslaught of a Canadian winter. Thankfully it was already loaded with a fresh set of logs even though the box next to it for extra fuel was empty.

Searching over the shelves and even getting down on the floor to look under them he found a few old cans of soup and peaches, a questionable tin of tuna, some forgotten chocolates, and a few can’s of soda.

And thankfully a can opener, although it was weirdly stored away in a filing cabinet that was in the kitchen.

The little stove didn’t have any kind of a pot or cooking implements on it or around it, or even a sink or anything which made Dan question if the area actually was a kitchen or not.

-

Dan looked up as I came back with the first load of sticks, arms full of them,  
“Over here.” He directed me to the stove where I dropped them all unceremoniously on the floor to the side, not seeing the box designed for that purpose until after I’d dumped them.

“I found some food, and pain killers!” He said, feeling better for being useful, and because the one’s he’d taken were starting to kick in just enough that his aches were a duller throb with occasional sharp stabs from his foot or head.

“Oh good.” I started, wanting to take some but then thought better of it. Certainly rescue would be soon, but what if another passenger made it here first? I was hurting but it was all liveable levels of pain. Following where he was pointing I went to the reception desk and took a look at the bottle giving in a shake and checking the side of it. Maximum dose of 6 tablet, take one every 4 or so hours, if rescue didn’t come until tomorrow Dan would probably need 4 more at minimum…

“Taking them dry is the worst.” Dan said putting a can of pop on the counter next to to my elbow.  
“Yeah I know, I’ve done that before, but, I’m gonna hold off till tonight. If more passengers make it here I don’t want to use them up, and if rescue comes I want to get access to the good shit y’know?”

Dan smiled at my attempt at humour, giving me the ‘rock out’ gesture with a giggling stoner sounding “Yee man.”

Cracking the pop I took a sip, lack of sleep, food, and water was starting to give me a headache but I still had a lot to do before I would rest.   
“Have you looked upstairs yet?”  
“Not yet, just wanted to check everything out down here first. Once I go upstairs it’s gonna be harder coming back down.”

I hummed thinking about his foot. “I’ll try to find you a good branch for like a walking stick or something. I want to make sure we have more wood than this before it gets dark.”

Dan was looking at my pop so I pushed the can toward him, better to share than open a second one.  
He made a noise of surprise when it touched his lips and nothing came out.

“It’s frozen.”  
“Yup.” I had been sticking my tongue in and licking it, desperate for some sugar. “I found some more matches last night, but I left them at the fishing hut, I’ll get em and then we can start on boiling some more water and thawing some food out.”

-

She went back outside while Dan tried to warm up the soda in his hands enough to get even a sip, also wanting the sugar in his system but getting nothing except cold hands.

Arranging all the food he’d found on the reception desk, and swiping a few of the little chocolates, he stood at the foot of the stairs leading up to a second floor loft before making a long loud noise of pain and frustration.

And then he climbed up.

The loft was designed as a group sleeping area. Two bunk beds pushed up against the left and centre walls, two dressers (with two drawers, one for each person he supposed) on each side of the beds, a medium sized wooden table with 3 chairs pushed up against the leftmost wall, and a bookshelf between the main room and the stairs. Tucked between the two bunk beds was another wood stove, this one about the size of two of the little pot ones, big and square with a large flat top that looked designed for cooking on. 

Well Dan wasn’t sure about the design of it, but that there was a cast iron frying pan and a large pot sitting on top of it gave him the clue that while downstairs was where they kept the food, upstairs was where they cooked and ate it.

The beds were all made, ready for the next people who were to stay in them, but covered in a thick layer of dust since Dan wasn’t sure when the last time anyone was here, but it seemed like the camp shut down a while ago and thankfully no one had come to fully clear everything out yet.

Dan tugged at one of the blankets and sneezed hard getting a puff of the dust, choosing to give up on stripping the beds just yet.   
Between one of the beds and the dresser he found a rolled up sleeping bag, picking it up and putting it on the table, it had a bit of dust on it but was probably clean on the inside, it’d be cuddly but if the two of you were going to spend another night out here at least it would be warmer.

Inside one of the drawers was a down vest, Dan’s leather jacket was good for keeping him dry but with only a t-shirt on underneath it didn’t do much for keeping him warm. Slipping off his jacket he put the vest on, a snug fit that if he lifted his arms would absolutely expose his stomach but the added layer wasn’t one he was going to complain about. He felt a little bad for taking it, considering the woman he was with was outside in the cold doing all the hard work.

/I’ll give my jacket to her when she comes back in./ He decided going through the other drawers. There wasn’t as much luck with them. He did find a little travel sewing kit, some pine cones that he tossed into the wood box next to the stove, luckily this was where they must have been storing the last of the wood as there were a few chunks in there as well. On the bookshelf there were a few ratty novels, and some empty plastic gallon milk jugs that Dan, after carefully opening one, was really, really glad they’d been washed out. Probably being kept for art supplies since they were situated with some craft paper and a box filled with pencil crayons and dried out glue sticks.

-

I sneezed the moment I came back inside, the dust visibly thick in the air.

“Jesu-“ I sneezed again dropping half of the sticks I was carrying, the third sneeze making me give up and just let them all go.

A flapping sound above me alerted me to the cause of all the mess, Dan had some blankets hanging over the railing and was beating them with his hands trying to knock the dust off them as best he could.

“Dude what the-“ I sneezed a final time blindly going back outside to perform the disgusting act of blowing snot into my hand and washing it off in the snow considering I had no idea where I could get tissues from and I didn’t want to gob all over my clothing. 

I could hear Dan call out an apology through the open door.

“There are beds up here, blankets and everything too! And a better stove.” He said once I came back inside, his voice was a little muffled as I could see looking up at him he’d found some dish towels and had one wrapped around his nose and mouth to keep out the dust.

“Should I start bringing stuff upstairs then?”  
“Yeah, please, there’s a box up here too so that’ll make it easier.”

Too many trips later I was laying on one of the beds, still breathing a little heavy, but warm from the exercise and the fire crackling next to my feet, warm steam was starting to fill the air as pots of snow were being melted and the pop Dan had found was finally melted just enough that we could take little sips every few minutes.

I was tired, and yet felt just safe enough that maybe I could sleep, at least a little nap. My worries from before were fading into the background.

Things were fine, I was really starting to believe that we were going to be just fine.

—

Dan sobbed, whined, and stomped his feet, finally settling to jamming his fist in his mouth to muffle his crying while I’d finally started cleaning his head wound. 

We’d rested for a bit, or at least I’d fallen asleep while Dan had organized our supplies to his liking. I’d awoken to his sharp yelp as he’d apparently tried to remove his hat while finally washing the blood off of him only to have it stuck to his head and ripping out some of his hair as he pulled it off without thinking.

With some work and patience I got a lukewarm pot of water and with Dan leaning back in a chair over it I carefully started to wash out his hair picking at the tissues that were now somewhat fused to the scab there.

I wished that Dan had found some scissors with the craft supplies as it would have all been easier if he didn’t have so much damn hair. But the hatchet wasn’t sharp enough to saw through his troublesome locks and that was the sharpest tool at your disposal. 

But I made sure to soak the wound with as hot of water as Dan could stand before covering it with a thick layer of the antiseptic spray and cream, carefully arranging gauze and bandaids over it trying to get them to stick without hopefully ripping out chunks of his hair later.

With Dan laying on the bed, I also took a look at his foot.

I wasn’t a doctor, so the both of us were working on assumptions and possibly very little fact. But using the bandaids and some of the medical tape I sat on his leg to keep him from kicking me away and taped his smallest toe to the one next to it like you would do with a broken finger.

It was a fair bit of stop and go since he would cry and ask me to stop, but then calm himself and I would continue until it was places in a way that seemed like it would be better. 

Two more pills, cool cloth over his eyes, and his foot up later I was making one of the can’s of soup he’d found, slowly sucking on one of the chocolates, letting it melt to take the edge off my hunger while I waited for some real food. 

It got dark outside so fast.

It was winter, and in the mountains so it made sense. I wished Dan’s phone worked, or that I had your own. Even if I couldn’t use it to contact anyone it would have been nice to know the time, to be able to look up the sunrise and sunset based on where you were on the planet, maybe gotten a better guess at your location. 

Longitudely? Latitudely?

A person could figure that out with sunset times right?

I wasn’t a science teacher so even with that information I wouldn’t have been able to figure it out anyway.

“You okay?”  
Dan grunted. 

“Can I get you to help me with one more thing?”  
A longer slightly whinier grunt but he pulled the cloth off his eyes and carefully sat up so as not to hit his head on the top bunk.

“I wanna move that other bunk bed so it’s parallel to this one.”

The one he was one was lengthwise against the right wall with the foot of the bed flush to the central wall, the stove was right next to it also flush to the central wall, just enough space so that the fire wouldn’t cook the bed or the occupant, but close enough that it would result in nice toasty warm feet all through the night.

The second bunk was lengthwise against the central wall on the other side of the stove, making for a more open spacial design but also more exposure to the rest of the building.

Dan looked a little put out by the proposition. “Why?”

Well, If we put it here.” I gestured to the space directly opposite his bed. “And shove one of the mattresses up to block the side opening then it’ll block the heat into the smaller space and it’ll be warmer between the two beds and we won’t lose so much heat to the rest of the building.”

His eyes widened realizing where I was going with this idea.

“Ahhh yeah, oh what if we use the sheets over the top or along the side like a blanket fort?”  
“Yeah, although you might be too tall for that…”

While my head was under the top bunk his was over it, so a sheet over the tops of the beds would have him hitting it every time he stood up.

“Oh… Well I mean it’s just for tonight.”

Of course rescue. I knew that was coming, probably by tomorrow, but I somewhat had to keep it out of my mind. If I focused too much on it I felt like I would be lulled into inaction.   
Rescue would be here tomorrow, but we still needed so much to last until then, the wood, the beds, the food. It would last longer than our rescue certainly but even then, the people coming to get us would most likely need someplace to rest as well once they got here. It would take time, possibly even days, to airlift all the injured passengers out of the area.

With a sharp nod and a tight smile to knock those too complex thoughts out of my head I focused once more on the here and now.

“Perfect! Lets do it and then we can fuckin’ go to bed.”

It was probably closer to 3 or 4 in the afternoon but the sun was already down behind the mountains and with how much pain and exhaustion we were already feeling this last job was hell but between the two of us, it got done and we created a little blanket and bunkbed fort around the stove that was warm if not a little humid from the continuously melting water.

Dan flopped into the bottom bunk a sleepy mumble of gratitude for his warm full belly of soup immediately falling asleep once his eyes were closed.

Too tired to even think about anything except the need to be warm and comfortable I threw in one more log to the fire and pushed Dan over covering the both of us with all the blankets we had, snuggling close and passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow.

Tomorrow for sure, tomorrow rescue would be here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am far to full of bread right now.  
> It's glorious.  
> Happy New Year everyone.  
> Here's to hope, love, and forgiveness.  
> To all those who need it.  
> Especially yourself.


	4. The Hollow (Day 3)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updated: October 13th 2017
> 
> -Changed order of this chapter to incorporate later chapters so now everything is kind of out of order, but I'll be fixing it all as the update goes along.

I had to pee.

This was a usual conundrum for every Canadian in the frosty winter months.

To open up the warm and cozy blankets inviting in the terrible bad unwanted cold.  
Or to stay here delightfully warm but, risk the possibility of eventually pissing the bed.

An arm tightening around my middle with a grumbling whine didn’t help either choice as Dan’s body pressing closer to me made me even warmer, both due to body heat and simply due to that little rush I got from being next to another person but also put pressure on my very important urination situation.

“Dan… I have to pee.”

“snoabbys’cold” He mumbled into my neck more asleep than awake. 

I laid there feeling a flush crawl through me again, it was barely comprehensible but he called me ‘baby’ again, I wasn’t sure how I felt about pet names, or him for that matter, but he was hansom, funny, seemed like he worked hard.

A twinge of guilt ran through me, wondering if his early morning slide into casual touching and terms of endearment meant he was mistaking me for someone else he had waiting for him back home.

I never, ever, would want to be ‘that girl’ who broke up someone else’s relationship or someone’s dirty little secret. Sure, maybe I was lonely too, my last relationship being not exactly one with a happy ending and was far too long ago but I was at that age where I wasn’t looking for casual flings or one night stands. Once the rescue teams showed up if we kept in touch this would maybe lead into a conversation but…

Another sleepy nuzzle and a tighter squeeze to my midsection pressed me into action, more due to the latter.

“Nope, nope gotta go, gotta go now.” Yanking up the blanket Dan pulled back with a soft dog-like whine of displeasure at being exposed to the cold, rolling over so that he pulled all the blankets away and kept himself in a warm blanket burrito.

“Shit piss fuck-“ I started the morning winter prayer spoken by many Canadians as my feet touched the ice cold wooden floor.

The placements of the bunks, blankets, and mattress situation had trapped in quite a bit of the heat from the stove, but that didn’t stop the floor from feeling like a block of ice even with socks on, and it was still a far cry from the warmth of the bed. But I had to get up, the fire had burned out to nothing, the sun was up, and I really, really needed to go.

Pulling on Dan’s leather jacket, I pushed aside the sheet “door” and felt even better about our blanket fort idea. There was a noticeable difference between the air on the inside vs the outside. It wasn’t until you were at the bottom of the stairs that I remembered.

The toilet was outside.

This is why I hated camping.  
In the summer it was the spiders hidden in the dark room, the abject fear of falling in, and the smell, oh god the smell of campsite outhouses. 

The few times I had to pee yesterday it was the cold, bare ass floating over a hole in the ground, balanced precariously over a toilet seat so cold I’d probably freeze to it even if I wanted to sit.  
Running back up the stairs to grab a sheet of newspaper because I had already learned the hard way that the toilet paper was gone…

Finishing my business I stood outside in the snow for a bit, just soaking everything in. 

It was a tad windy, very cold, but also quiet.

Just so, so very quiet.

 

My mind wandered through the silence, looking up into the blue sky, getting lost in it all.

Should we try to trek back to the point of the crash site to leave a better message? Wait for rescuers there?  
We were in a pretty safe place here, should we try to find the other sections of the plane to see if anyone else was alive? Needed help? 

After two nights would anyone else even be alive?

I started taking deeper breaths, memories of the body on the lake coming back to me and hitting me hard. I’d just left him there, I’d looted that person and just left them there.  
The cold hit hard in my chest freezing my lungs, making it even harder to breathe, and yet I wasn’t moving.

Was I a monster? Should I have carried the body closer to the shore for the rescuers to pick up? That was a person and I’d treated them like a video game treasure box? What kind of fucked up person does that?

I was clipping through thoughts now too fast to regiser them individually but an overwhelming theme of needing to stand out here in the cold, needing to punish myself because I didn’t deserve to live, I didn’t deserve to have survived that crash. Who the fuck was I compared to the lives of all the people on that flight?

“There you are! Hey you okay? You’ve been out here for a while.”

Dan’s voice from the back door snapped me out of my head, making me realize that I was standing out here to the point my body was shaking uncontrollably, although from the cold or my mental state I didn’t know. 

But I was glad he’d come out to pull me back to earth.

“Yeah- Yeah I just… Had to dig out the toilet n’stuff.” 

“Ah good! I gotta poop and I didn’t really want to pop a squat in the snow.”

“That…” I laughed long and hard, startled by his lewd candour and just with how serious everything was you needed a reason to laugh, glad that he was there to give it to me. “There’s no toilet paper so… Use snow.”

Giving him a thumbs up as I trudged back inside, giggling at the horrified look on his face at the idea of rubbing snow on his butt.

“IS THAT WHAT YOU DID?” He accused looking somewhat scared and impressed. 

“Well yuh, I’m Canadian that’s what we always do.”

The look on his face was priceless but I smacked him in the chest with a piece of unused newspaper as I walked past also returning his jacket commenting that there was not enough money in the world to get me to dip my bits in ice.

Going inside I saw Dan had started up the fire again in the fort, staring at the wood we had it was fine, we’d be burning all day without any problems, my arms and legs were screaming with the abuse over the last few days.

I didn’t even take a painkiller, instead crawling back into the bed and wrapping myself up in Dan’s fading warm spot.

“Y’know I was thinking.” Dan awoke me from my light doze speaking before he pulled back the makeshift curtain and realized I was back in bed.

“Uh-oh” I teased, letting him know I was awake and listening. “I dunno if I like the sound of that.”

“Har-har, I was thinking that the reason why these stoves are designed so weird is because usually this place is for the summer so they’d be more focused on keeping it cool, so cooking upstairs would like make the heat go away faster from the building, but then when the ice fishers come, sleeping with the bigger stove is nice and easier to fill I guess too.”

I’d sat up while he was talking, and nodded slowly not really having cared enough to give it any sort of consideration before this point.  
“That sounds like a good hypothesis.”  
“That sounded very much like a teacher voice, are you mocking me?”  
“No, sorry that just comes out sometimes. Is this what you were contemplating while pooping?”  
“Anything to take my mind off the fact that it was so cold I think my dick inverted.”  
“Well, welcome to womanhood, it’ll make you stronger.” I moved out of the way so he could crawl back under the blankets with me. “How’s your foot?”

“Swelling is down, still hurts like a son of a bitch so if I can avoid walking I’d like to.”  
“Mn, and your head?”  
“Compared to my foot I barely notice it, and like I feel back to being mentally normal again? If that makes sense? Yesterday was like, okay but shit still felt fuzzy. I mean that could have also been lack of food, water, and sleep, but either way, I do feel better today.”

“Good, that’s good.”

He made a move to snuggle with me, scooting down lower into the blankets but freezing when he felt me stiffen as he put his head a little too close to my chest.

“Oh… Sorry.” He pulled back immediately.  
“No, no it’s okay… I just-”

“No, yeah I get it, boundaries and like things like that.”  
He was pulling out of the bed now, clearly with his own ideas of why I was rejecting him.

“Dan, wait, dude, like- I like you, I think you’re cute I just, don’t… y’know… fuck.” I was sitting up now too, not wanting him to leave the bed, not wanting him to be mad at me. 

“Hey no it’s fine you don’t need to make an excuse, it’s totally fine.”

“No dude, I just… Like are you even single?”

He looked at me, trying to puzzle out where I was going. “Currently yes?”

“And like- I’m just- like are we just doing cuddle buddies for survival and warmth here or is this… Gonna be like a thing?”

His eyes widened a little, understanding hitting him like a brick as he looked at the floor, the conversation going full high school ‘do you like me circle yes or no’.

“I don’t… Wow um, shit. Like is that-?”

“Shit.” I put my head in my hands, elbows resting on my knees now. “Shit I just got weird didn’t I?”  
“No! Jeeze no, I totally get it.” He moved back, ducking down to sit next to me, leaning on his own knees, not touching me. “Like this is a very- very particular way of meeting someone but it’s kinda-“

“It’s all kind of forced.”

He made a noise of ‘agreeing but not wanting to’ “Sort of yeah, I mean I was hitting on you- like you know. Before.”

Before the crash, it felt so weirdly long ago.

“But now we’re here so yeah it’s- it’s you know a little unusual?”

“Yeah, I mean…” I took a breath trying to be calm and failing. “Ok so, I guess I just wanted to make sure we’re both on the same page because like, I don’t want to read into shit and I don’t want you to read into shit and I just wanted to make sure we’re both like. Y’know. Cool? With? Like? Everything?”

I was babbling, trying to backtrack to save myself from the embarrassment I was feeling.

This is why I was perpetually single.  
I was disastrously awkward.

“No we’re totally cool, girl, like once we get picked up I would love to spend a day and take you out.”

I didn’t make a sound, but I must have had a look of not believing him, prompting him to put his hand around my waist to get me to look at him. “Hey, no I really would. Like chatting with you before, I was totally trying to angle to get your number and maybe see if I could catch you on the return flight or something…”

I could feel that ‘but’ because I knew it was there too.  
But, we’d be long distance.  
But, it probably wouldn’t have worked out.

But, but, but… A thousand things that would have come up and we probably would have never spoken again, and chances were once we got picked up we’d be bonded by the experience itself but life would return to normal and all those same buts would be there.

I groaned and put my head on his shoulder closing my eyes so I didn’t have to face the world of shame I was about to put myself into.

“You’re really hot, and I would super love to snuggle a whole bunch with you. I’m just not very good at people- Casually- stuff… Y’know?”

He giggled, first at the comment of him being hot, but then at just my uncomfortable spiel that dissolved into something that was barely coherent. 

“I understand. Like, I like cuddling, I think you’re super hot too, I know I’m like a super awesome rockstar~” His voice was self mocking. “But, I’m not some kind of guy who bounces between groupies if that’s what you’re worried about. If you’re okay with snuggling no strings attached, cool. If you want me to keep my hands to myself, also cool. If you want to just kind of, go with the flow and see where things go? Absolutely cool as fuck.” 

“So you’d say you’re… Cool with anything?”

“I am ice-cold baby.”  
“Vanilla ice?”

He laughed, breaking into the song, even standing up, swinging his hips for a brief moment like he was going to dance but stopped with a sharp sound lifting his bad foot off the ground.  
“Right, yes, that’s a thing.” He chided himself.

I was laughing up to the point that he’d stood, my giggles pittering out into a sympathetic hiss seeing him hurting.

“Ok well now that we’ve dug deep, how about you sit down, and I make some soup?”

“Fuck YEA Soup! Aww I wish we had those crackers left.”  
“I wish we had grilled cheese sandwiches, but if wishes were fishes we’d all eat for free.”  
He shook his head and giggled at my odd choice of words, our serious moment being quickly pushed aside for levity, trading favourite soups and soup related stories as I warmed up a tin and we ate.

Heading downstairs to clean out the pot with snow and then refill it for more water I looked back up to the sky, perfectly blue except the one streak of the smoke from our chimney. Not another dot of other fires as far as I could see. 

Was I just at a bad angle for it? Were they all too far away? Conserving wood in the daytime? Holed up someplace with electricity?

“HELLO!!!” I yelled out suddenly overcome. “HELLO IS ANYONE OUT THERE?”

I could hear my voice echoing, over the lake, between the mountains. We weren’t close enough to any particularly steep range that I was worried about an avalanche but the quiet, the echo of my voice, the calls of crows that I could hear but not see, the wind, and nothing else.

I yelled, angrily, frustration, just to banish the quiet.

It unnerved me.

“Hey! What happened?”

Dan was looking over the railing right next to the stairs, clearly thinking about coming down to see what I was hollering about.

“Nothing just… Needed to get that out.”

I thumped back up the stairs but clearly Dan wasn’t quite convinced. 

“Are you sure?”

“It’s just… I haven’t heard anyone yet. No helicopters, no emergency vehicles and- We need more wood if we’re going to go another night, and we should probably head back to the uh… The crash site… And like check if someone is there yet or I don’t know, leave a better sign of the fact that we’re here in case someone does show up there? If someone doesn’t come today- I just…”

“Someone’s gonna come soon.”

“Yeah but when? We’re okay but what about other people?”

Dan sat down on the bunk while I spoke, looking at his hands, twisting the large ring he was wearing.  
“Fuck, I can’t believe I-“

I knew how he felt, I hadn’t been thinking much of other passengers at all. What if we’d left someone behind when we’d left the crash site the first time? We had all day yesterday to go searching for other survivors, how many had to suffer out in the cold, how many had died because we’d been thinking of only ourselves.

“Canadian wilderness is big, like an ocean big, what if someone- What if it takes a few days for them to find the wreckage?.”

“Fuck… Fuck, we have to go looking for other survivors.” Dan’s head shot up. “It’s been so cold, what if there’s someone else out there? If no one can find us we’re the only ones who can do it.”

I was glad that he was the type of person who was on the same page as I was, that despite how much I hurt, despite how much he was hurting, he wanted other people to be safe too.

But I was still scared.

“We can try, that’s why one of us should go to the crash site, leave signs that there’s shelter here in case anyone else comes by.”

He nodded looking back at his hands, and then followed my eyes to the meagre food supplies we had.

Yes, we were okay for now, but the grasp we had on survival was tenuous at best. Today we would be fine, tomorrow too…  
But the next?  
If more people were added to the group the little food we had wouldn’t last.  
If someone injured came what medicine we had wouldn’t be enough.

What could we even do in the face of all this?

“We gotta try.” Dan whispered as though he could hear my thoughts, most likely his were just running the same gambit mine were.

We we going to at least try.

-

We had a small fight after that.

I figured that I would head back to the crash site alone, after all I wasn’t injured and my shoes in general were better for the winter. I could take Dan’s jacket, the toque, and extra down vest he’d found and I’d be warm enough that if I did find anyone else I could share those items to help them keep warm.

Dan couldn’t exactly argue with that logic, except what if I needed to carry someone back? It would be a waste of time to run all the way back here and then all the way back there again. What if something happened to me? I got lost or injured on the way. Dan wouldn’t know when to come looking for me or where.

In the end it boiled down to a sad puppy look at a begging.  
“Please don’t leave me alone, if something happened to you I-” His voice cracked and my heart wrenched with guilt. Even after this short time he was right. 

If either of us lost the other…

We were lucky it was such a beautiful day. Sunny and as warm as winter got in Canada, if I had to guess I’d probably place the temperature barely in the minus give or take, which meant that while still somewhat dangerous, this was potentially the best day we would get with the lack of gear we had.

With a blanket over our shoulders held down by our jackets making for a good hood for me adding another layer of protection that we could transfer to someone else if they needed it when we found the other survivors, hatchet carefully tucked into Dan’s belt, we were off. 

It was quiet, nothing but our breathing and the birds as we circled the lake heading to the small river that lead to the crash site. It was hard to talk, Dan had taken some pain killers before we’d left (the rest of those supplies tucked into our pockets just in case along with the chocolates Dan had found) but I was setting a brutal pace for him. Maybe a little bit was vindictive of me, forcing him to keep up since he’d insisted on coming, but mostly it was because I was worried, I didn’t know how long it would take us to get to our section of the plane, if anyone else had survived that and the past two nights what state they would be in, and how long it would take us to get them back. It was warm now but the temperature could easily drop to below 40 this far north, especially on such a bright and sunny day. Clear nights were beautiful but dangerous with how quickly heat would dissipate and exposure was a faster killer than people realized.

As we reached the point on the river where the bank was shallow enough on one side that we knew this was around where we crossed down Dan stopped me, a hand on my arm as he pointed into the woods spotting a few deer.

“White-tails I think.” I said softly, getting a confirmation as their namesake tails went up into the air as they spotted us and the four of them bounced away through the snow.

Dan suddenly laughed, his face lit up with such joy and wonder making me smile as well, reaching out and take his hand for no other reason than I wanted to be connected to something happy right then.

He grinned squeezing my hand back, not letting go as we continued to walk until we hit the bend where I was certain the crash was on the other side of the ridge.

The clearing opened up the hunter’s blind was there, and beyond it, the blackened husk of the tail end of the plane.

The airplane had long since burnt itself out, not much more than a melted black hunk covered in snow. Dan’s hand was tight around mine as we got closer, my stomach sinking, It didn’t seem like anyone could have survived that. I was amazed we even had looking at it.

Dan stopped a few yards away from it, I felt like the both of us were just bracing ourselves as we started to circle around the back end of the wreak to the hole we must have crawled out from. 

There were no footprints but maybe the snow had simply swept them clean.

It was a delusional hope.

“You okay?” I whispered since Dan’s grip on my hand was getting to a level that it was a little painful and he wasn’t moving.  
His head shook ‘no’ but after a steading breath he breathed out a soft “Yeah.”

Looking inside we saw what was left of a few passengers who hadn’t been able to get out.

Dan let out a cry and immediately backed out my hand sliding out of his as I stood there frozen.  
That cold distance rose back up in me, the feeling like I wasn’t really there, that this was all a dream or I was watching some horrible movie.

It smelled of smoke, harsh chemicals, roasted meat.

I hoped they all died on impact.

I felt blind, my eyes were open, I could in a way see everything, but I also couldn’t, passing over the cabin, each seat with a body in it, a few empty but I couldn’t tell, were those our seats? Just empty ones? People who didn’t have their belts on and were swept out?

I had no idea how we had survived. 

Dan was sitting on the steps leading up into the blind, his head between his knees, toque on the ground with his hands in his hair, body rocking a little side to side.

I sat next to him, arms going over his shoulders, feeling his body shake as he sobbed, ugly sounds that broke the wall between myself and the horror until I could feel my face was wet, eyes stinging.

Eventually he turned, arms around my waist, putting his head in my lap letting me fold over him uncomfortable in this position but both of us unwilling or unable to move, needing to cling to one another, to affirm we survived, to mourn all those who had not.

“There- There were so many people on that flight and we- we could have- I’m just- I just feel- like- like…“ Dan’s voice was rough, barely over a whisper as he spoke. If my head hadn’t been right against his I would have never heard him speak.

“I know.” My voice was just as thick. 

It was hitting us both, a deep sadness, a deeper guilt.

Gratitude we’d lived, feeling bad for the exact same reason.

His face pressed into my legs, careful still about his wound I massaged his head with my fingertips, letting him find his calm as he needed to. Letting myself instead drift away deep inside, not thinking about those lost on the flight, not letting myself think of much.

Sitting up Dan rubbed his eyes and face, quiet and melancholy as he pulled away, staring back at the wreckage silently. I stared too, listening to the crows and wind, I had no idea how much time passed before I got up and wandered back to it, Dan standing up and following hesitantly at a distance.

“Can I have the hatchet?”  
I stopped, waiting for Dan to catch up and give it to me, finding the largest spot of blackened, but still clear space on the hull.

/SOS 2 OK WENT 2 LAKE +CABIN -FOOD/

If rescue came here first, hopefully that would be enough.

Returning to Dan he reached for me, wrapping me up in his long arms, “Should we… Keep looking?”

I nodded into his chest, squirming a little out of his hold.  
“A part of the plane hit the cabins by the lake, this looks like the tail end so the rest has to be more that way.”  
“So there might be other people, in the other cabins.”

I hesitantly nodded again, thinking to the body on the lake, thinking to our part of the plane, how we were the only ones to make it.

“Yeah, we’ll find them in the other cabins.”

The corner of Dan’s mouth ticked up, like he was trying to give me a reassuring smile but couldn’t quite make the lie himself. 

We were burnt empty.

-

We held hands the entire way back, quiet and somber, hurrying only as the light started to dim, I felt like we hadn’t even been outside all that long but dawn came late and dusk early, pink hues and stars already flecking the sky once we reached the lake. 

Dan tugged my hand in the wrong direction from the camp office, heading instead across the lake.

“Dan… It’s getting dark”  
“But what about the other people.”  
“Anyone in the cabins will be fine for one more night, but we’ve been outside too long already, it’s getting cold.”

Dan looked over at the cabins, no light, no smoke. Biting his lip he nodded, but looked away from me, letting me lead him back to the cabin where maybe if we were lucky we’d have enough wood to last the night.

Safe indoors, no appetite for dinner despite having not eaten nearly enough that day, but I felt ill, drained.

Dan felt it too, as soon as we were in we both climbed the stairs, Dan kicking off his shoes and getting into the bed immediately, leaving me to light the fire and crawl in next to him.

Clinging to one another in the dark I felt nothing in me.


	5. The Lost (Day 4)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited: October 16 2017  
> -Major changes in this chapter. Adjusted dates, food supplies, location.

When I woke up it was still dark out.

My arm was around Dan’s chest, face pressed into his back, making him the little spoon, while he was tucked as close to the wall as he possibly could get.

Even with the monopoly on the bed it wasn’t like there was much space, but at least it was warm.

He didn’t stir as I got up, putting a few small twigs onto the embers in the stove, prodding the fire to accept the last log we had.

It was cold on my body, but my face was burning hot as I sat there in front of the fire just watching the flames slowly lick at the log, smoke lazily curling up the stovepipe, the wood turning black.

I was frozen, my imagination giving me vivid images of people screaming as their skin bubbled, licked by the fire, trapped in their seats. Screaming for help that I had no ability to give them, scenarios running though my head of ‘what if?’

What if I had been less scared of flying? What if I’d kept my wits about me after escaping from the plane? What if instead of fleeing for my own life I had run back and started pulling people out? How many people had my inaction killed?

The window above the stove was glowing a soft pinkish grey light when I finally turned my head away from the flames, startled to see that Dan had turned over and was watching me.  
Sitting up on his elbow he reached out for me, giving him my hand I followed his tug, crawling to the edge of the mattress. His hand moved up to the back of my neck, thumb rubbing over my cheek making me realize that I’d been crying. 

Tipping forward I put my forehead to his, eyes closed and my hand on his wrist, giving it a squeeze to tell him I was fine.

Or at least as fine as I could be.

I felt his lips on my forehead, more just resting there while I gathered myself up and pulled away.

I didn’t know what to say, and neither did he, so we didn’t say anything. I moved to make soup, and we split one of the soda’s for breakfast. I was hungry enough that I could have probably finished the can by myself and I had a feeling the way we both scraped the bottom of the pot clean that Dan could have easily polished it off solo himself. We’d both walked a lot yesterday but our appetite had been held at bay from the collective horror and grief of returning to the crash site. It was coming back today but we only had one can of soup left, after that it was a few cans of preserved peaches and the last can of pop.

Dan had stayed in the bed while I cooked and we ate. It didn’t bother me, after all I’d done much the same the day before. It wasn’t until he got up and the first sound of the day was his pained whimper as his foot made contact with the floor.

“I’m fine.” His voice was a harsh whisper as he looked down, his grip on the frame on the top bunk strong enough it was turning his knuckles white. 

“Dan.”  
“I’m fine.”  
“Let me see your foot Dan.”

His eyes finally met mine before they shied away again, a full grumpy pout on his lips at being caught out.

Sock off and his foot in my lap his toe and the whole side of his foot had swollen enough that it had snapped off the band-aid’s I’d used to tape the one broken bit together. 

“Fuck.” Both of us said the moment that his sock was off. He could feel it but I don’t think either of us were expecting that it had gotten that bad.  
But he had walked a lot the day before, it looked like he was paying for it in spades today.

“You’re not going anyway today buddy-boy.” I said getting up to grab him some pain killers and better gauze to wrap his whole foot up with.

“But-“  
“No buts.”  
His lips made a thin line as his brow furrowed, I was giving him a look that barred no argument but he did have one good counterpoint.

“I have to poop.”

“… Ok so you can do that. Can you hold it until I wrap it?”

With a nod he took the medication and laid back on the bed so he could put a pillow over his face and bite it while I wrapped his foot and put his sock back on it. Leaning on me, with the branch I’d found to help him walk on the other side of him, he got on one shoe and made it down the stairs and through the snow to the outhouse. 

I gave him some distance, wandering toward the treeline kicking at the snow to find branches hidden underneath and dragging them toward the cabin to later pull inside, dry off, and chop up for more firewood.

Dan was halfway back when I came around the corner of the cabin, doing a circle around the outside I’d found a small unused pile of wood covered in snow along the side of the building. It wasn’t much, just a few extra logs but they would be useful.

“We need more wood,” I said once we’d gotten inside leading him toward the stairs. “I’m going to check those other cabins today.” I didn’t say what for. For survivors, for food, for anything we could get. “If someone doesn’t come today…”

“They gotta come today.”

I looked down, putting my efforts into helping Dan up the stairs, not wanting to say anything.

But the reality of the situation was getting too big to ignore.

“They should have come yesterday… or the day before.”

I almost knocked Dan over since I was still climbing and he’d stopped. “You don’t think-“  
“I mean I hope someone comes today, and I know someone will come eventually but… We don’t know- We don’t know why or- or where we went down, we just- What if- What if.”

“What if they’re not.”

Dan nodded moving with me again, slowly struggling up each step until he was back in the bed, looking around your little makeshift home realizing that even after the miracle of surviving the crash, the grasp you both had on survival was still pretty tenuous at best, 

“I’m going to take a loop around the lake and check the wreckage by the cabins, see if anyone made it over there.”  
“I’ll come with you.”  
“No.”  
“But-“  
“No, your foot looks like shit, if that gets worse, even if someone comes, you could lose your foot.”  
“I know but-“  
“It’s faster too. I can get around, see what I can find. The cabins aren’t that far, if someone needs help then it won’t be that difficult for me to run back here if I need to, I’ll be back soon.”  
“I—“ He looked down cutting himself off as he realized I had a point, and there was nothing he could do in his state to stop me, so he huffed out a sulky “Okay.” Followed with the almost forgotten “Thank you.”

The lake was big enough that it would probably take a half an hour to an hour in the snow to get all the way around it in a full circle if I stayed close to the shore without stopping. I wanted to check the ice fishing huts that we hadn’t visited too, but I’d need to take it slow, both due to the ice and not knowing how deep it was, and because I didn’t have much to carry anything in. If I got lucky and found a lot of supplies then I might need to take trips back and forth a few times. And if something happened, if I found someone, I could probably try to run through the middle of the lake and get back within a few minutes.

“There’s a little wood along this wall outside.” I gestured to the wall that our bed shared. “IF, and this is only an if, don’t push yourself, but IF your swelling goes down and you feel up to it you can try to bring some pieces inside, or drag in some of the branches I put by the back door to cut them up.”

I was going to grab one of the logs I’d already brought inside upstairs for him, extra fuel in case I didn’t get back in the next few hours, as well as some fresh snow to keep melting. Little tasks he could pay attention to while he rested.

——

The lap around the lake went pretty fast but I was so cold and exhausted it took an extra hour just because I stopped in a cabin and took a nap trying to warm up in one of the beds in hope that the cold wind that had kicked up would pass as the sun got higher.

There were no survivors in the other cabins. 

The part that had lit the two cabins that had been hit by debris from the airplane wasn’t a large chunk, just a fragment of the hull that had enough spark in it to catch what it had touched on fire. But not a big enough section to hold many charred remains of passengers. 

But there was another body from the sky. Snow covered laying face up, eyes frozen open and unseeing. 

Of the 4 remaining cabins it seemed pretty clear that this area was designed for summer camps, probably for kids. Since the cabins were divided into three cabins on one side, and three others on the other side of a small rock ridge separating the two I could see it as being a small girls, and boys camp maybe?  
Smaller, child bunkbeds with little plastic storage containers tucked under them filled the rooms. The beds were stripped bare, no blankets or pillows, just clean, plastic covered mattresses. Taking a quick pass through the plastic bins I was surprised to find catches of snacks that the kids probably forgot about, a small bag of unopened marshmallows, a chocolate bar, not much but enough to get two people through for at least a day, maybe the next day if you ate really light.

The last cabin must have belonged to some councillor or it was for a winter fishermen, or could have been privately owned since it was further away from what I’d dubbed the kids cabins. 

Past a large enough ridge that I had to go over the ice to get to it, it had it’s own dock overlooking the lake, and unlike the others, was locked. 

Fortunately not all the windows were.

Knocking off the ice I was able to jimmy the back window open and while I wasn’t proud of it…

I then also needed to roll a large snowball to stand on in order to get INTO the window since I was too short otherwise to hoist myself up that high.

This place was the bit of good luck we needed.

The cabin was someplace that must have been occupied, possibly fairly recently too, fall hunters, or maybe the people who came for the ice fishing must have been here not more than a few months ago since compared to everything else this place was still fairly dust free and still stocked a bit. 

It was one large room, a bed off to one side with a dresser next to it, a large brick fireplace, a kitchen area across from the bed with a gas stove, a table against the wall, and two chairs.

In the dresser there were few clothes that might fit Dan, a good scarf, boots, old jeans, long sleave shirts, all owned by a man definitely stockier but hopefully around the same height as Dan so at least he would have fresh clothing. Especially the jeans were a good find, Dan’s poor knees had gotten a chill from being exposed alongside a beating from all the underbrush that would stab and snag at him through the holes in his jeans when he walked outside.

In the kitchen were few cans of label-less mystery food (or at least I hoped it was food), tea, and dried goods, the usual stuff that tended to float around in a household that would keep for ages to the point that you’d forget about it and it would sit there essentially forever until the day came that you finally needed it and then would realize it expired back in 2005.  
Yes there were some things in there that had expired dangerously long ago but we would save those for last.

Around the house I also found a slew of useful items, a hunter’s knife, a backpack, some trashy tuck stop novels, and hunters magazines.

Next to the stove was a fully stocked wood box, half filled with regular chopped logs the other half not as full, only a few strange looking paper wrapped things at the bottom.  
Pulling it out it was heavy, seeming to be packaged wood but a special treated type that burned longer than usual.

They were not as heavy as the usual wood and I had no idea how safe they were to cook on or to sleep around while burning, but the bag said they’d burn for at minimum 3 hours a-piece, unlike usual wood of the same size which gave around an hour at least.

I made a mental note to walk around the outside of the cabin as well to see if there was a prepared wood pile already because if there was then I’d have to get Dan to pack up and move over here instead of making the trip across the lake to carry everything.

I felt a little guilty being in here, more-so than at the first cabin. That was a public space already, it had been unlocked and abandoned so taking things there, using them, was really doing the owners a favour since they’d just have to clean it all out upon return anyway.

But this place made me also feel hopeful. It was used, probably recently used, and it looked like someone fully planned on returning and using it again since they’d kept it stocked with food and clothing. That meant that one way or another SOMEONE had to come back. 

Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but eventually someone would return to this place and find us.

Taking the backpack I left everything else there and stepped outside doing the lap of the building, locating a decent sized wood pile, the outhouse for this building, and then went back inside and took that nap because it had gotten horrifically windy and cold just within the time I’d been in the building. I had heard it kicking up while I’d been inside but hadn’t imagined it would have gotten that bad that fast. Even those few moments circling the building my face felt like it had been flayed with ice.

The insulation on this building was vastly superior to the larger cabin as well, it was cold but no wind, no draft, the blankets on the slightly larger bed were nice and thick, and the mattress was a godsend compared to the bunk bed.

It was hard to wake up from my nap and force myself back outside but I wanted to get Dan and move our small camp here, hopefully before it got dark.

And considering the thick clouds and dimming light, I’d need to do that fast.  
Carefully I stepped out onto the lake, the ice seemed thick, considering how cold it was out I couldn’t imagine it wasn’t completely frozen through. But slow and steady O slid to each fishing hut careful about listening for any crack in the ice stopping at the two huts that I hadn’t looked into, finding and taking the extra tackle, a fishing book, more matches and wood from them.

I didn’t bother to stop at the one hut I’d already stripped bare. A murder of crows had gathered near it, perched on the roof of it, milling around nearby.

I knew what they were doing and I kept my eyes to the snowy ground in front of me.

With the lack of food combined with the amount of walking I’d been doing over the last few days, injuries however minor, and the cold, I was so beyond drained that even this short stint across the lake exhausted me, and the slippery trudge over the ice left me so tired I was walking half asleep. 

Which is why even though I could hear an occasional thwacking sound echoing over the ice, I was too tired to register what it could have been enough to bother to look up until I was nearly to the shore and a snap loud like a gunshot made me jump and nearly slip onto my ass.

Looking up, hacking away at a tree branch, was Dan with the hatchet. He must have gotten bored or his foot was feeling better, or he just felt frustrated at not being able to do anything and was trying to collect more wood, breaking low hanging branches and trying to cut them down small enough to carry and fit in the oven. I was so focused on him and mentally preparing the scolding I was going to give him if his foot was worse it took me a moment to see the animal between myself and him, making its way closer to him.

A dark grey coyote, curious about Dan but a little jumpy at the noise he was making with the axe, low and creeping closer in between swings.

“HooolyshitDAN!” I yelled my voice echoing over the lake making Dan and the animal’s head shoot up. “LOOK!” 

Pointing Dan followed my hand, now able to see the coyote trying to slip up on him. It had already hunched down lower, now gaging if it should attack or run considering I was there and Dan was now looking right at it.

Yelling like an idiot and sliding along the ice as fast as I could I shouted to Dan to make himself look bigger and yell at the animal instead of what he was doing which was standing there like a deer in headlights looking very much like startled prey about to run.

“NO, DOWN, BAD DOG, GIT, SHOO!” Dan finally snapped out of his surprised state, swinging his arms in the air and yelling at the coyote making it finally decide that whatever the two of you were, you probably weren’t worth the trouble, and it scampered off back into the wood.  
Dan stood there scanning around the tree line and over the lake while I slowed your jog and made it to him.

“Holy shit there eh?”  
“There are WOLVES out here??”

“I guess, I mean it was a bit too small for a wolf I think, and there was only one. Maybe it was a teenage wolf? I dunno, but I think coyote.”

“Holy. FUCKING-SHIT!”

The way he was hugging the hatchet and standing there cursing made me slowly ease the weapon away from him with a gentle “Hey there buddy, we’re good.” Calmly assuring him that all manner of wild animals were more scared and curious of him than an actual threat. He giggled shaking his head, probably in some kind of shocked hysterics.  
He bent to pick up his wood but I asked him to leave it, taking his arm and letting him lean back on me to bring him inside again in case it was a wolf and decided to come back with it’s pack-mates.

Indoors I was impressed, and a little mad with the amount of wood that he’d gathered. He’d brought in probably all the pre-cut logs from outside, as well as the branches I’d dragged to the back door, and he’d been out there again working on more.

“How bad is your foot.”  
“It’s fine.”  
I gave him a skeptical look, not even helping him up the stairs, pushing him over into the comfy chair that was right by the door and made him take off his shoe.

Gently feeling the wrapping I could tell the swelling had gone down but how he flinched with each touch I knew that wasn’t going to last long.

I didn’t even have to say anything, just gave him the ‘I’m not mad just disappointed’ look making him squirm uncomfortably. “I was just worried, it was getting late and there was that wind, and the clouds. If… If no one comes today then we gotta stay warm but what if it snows again really bad?”

I squeezed his calf and hoisted myself up. “Nah I get it, but you’re hurt. You have to be careful, you don’t need to push yourself so hard.”  
“Male pride?”  
“Suck that toxic shit up Bub.”

The stuck out lip was adorable, but did nothing to convince me.

“But if you want to be useful, here.” I dropped the near empty back pack into his lap. “We’re moving.”  
“What? Did you find someone?”

My heart dropped a little at that, since while I had found people, none of them had been alive.

“No.” It wasn’t really a lie. “But straight across from us is a cabin, one that someone clearly visits a lot more often than this place. It has some food, a lot of wood, clothes, it’s smaller, and a hell of a lot warmer too. We can leave a message here telling anyone that comes here to go there instead.”

Dan perked up a little, while sharing the bed and having a blanket fort had helped, I doubted either of us could say that we had yet to get legitimately warm since we’d arrived. That alone held enough appeal to get him moving.

“I’ll throw things down to you, and you pack them up.”

We agreed to take the most important of our supplies. The lamp, medical supplies, and two extra blankets. 

The wood however I stacked some upstairs, setting it up the fireplace with the matches sitting in the pot covered by the pan, just in case someone else came here and was unable to leave they’d have some heat and we’d have a way of knowing someone else was here via the smoke. I left the fort up, also so no one would have to set that up.

I also only took two cans of the fruit with us. Leaving the last can of soup, a can of fruit, and the last can of pop just in case someone else survived and made it here.

Using the notebook I left the message, drawing a quick map of the lake marking where we were, where the crash was, and a message for someone to come find us.

The days passed too fast, it was freezing and nearly completely dark by the time we cut back through the middle of the lake and made it to the new cabin. Hustling to build a fire we finally made use of the lamp, needing the light to find things since it was too dark to see by the time we arrived. A second lamp on the top shelf of the bookcase, too high for me to see was quickly spotted by Dan, the gas lamp was good but this one was battery powered and still had some juice to it, the two lights didn’t make it that bright in the room, but once the fire was roaring the combined light of all three was more than enough to see pretty clearly by.

Dan was situated in the bed as I cooked dinner over the fire. It had a grate that I could place over the wood to balance some of the pots and pans from the kitchen on, the gas stove there was either out or turned off and I had no idea how to turn it on. Some pain killers in him and hot soup with extra garlic in it since now we had the herbs and a nice cup of tea to follow it I helped him out to the outhouse before we came back in for the night. 

Curled up in the dark Dan moved around a lot, trying to find a comfortable place not stopping fidgeting until I rolled over and laid on him. 

“What’s wrong?”  
“Nothing, just- No it’s nothing.”

He adjusted again, moving his foot onto the pillows and laying on his back so it would stay elevated, arranging me to be tucked against him, head on his shoulder, but he kept moving, sighing, generally not sleeping.

“Seriously what?” It was warm, he might have still been hurting but that was really his own fault, we were for once not wearing dirty clothing and instead in soft, clean, fleece pyjama’s.  
“The other cabins-“ He started, his fingers making their way to my hair, playing with some of the strands. I kind of wished he wouldn’t I could only imagine how gross and greasy I was, but those thoughts were unimportant compared to his concerns. “Were there people?”

“No.”

He took a deep breath and I could feel his head turning to look at me.

“Were there- were there bodies?”  
“Yes.”

I could hear the ‘oh’ more in his chest than actually through his mouth, I didn’t want to talk about it, there weren’t many, but I hadn’t really looked too deeply in the burnt out cabins, just the one new body and the crows.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered, although I didn’t know why. For not being there? For letting me face that alone? For asking?

I was silent, nosing myself closer to him, not wanting to talk about it. 

He hugged me close, finally settling enough so at least I could sleep. His soft apologies drifting away as I did, the comfort of his body barely holding fresh nightmares of glossy eyes and black birds waiting in dark corners at bay.


	6. The Waiting (Days 5 and 6)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited October 17th 2017
> 
> -changed order of events but I think I'm moving back towards the original timeline again

It was the wind that woke me up. 

A sharp howling beating against the window, rattling hard against them, the fireplace emitting a haunting whistling as the wind passed over the top of it. 

The cold came next, slowly creeping into the bed, pressed against my face and toes that were sticking out from under the blanket.

It had actually gotten hot enough in the tiny cabin the night before that I had kicked off my socks at some point, a feat that would have never happened in the larger, drafty office building we’d first bunkered down in.

While the cold and wind may have woken me up, making me aware of the grey light filtering in through the windows to tell me our limited daylight had come, these two things if anything were making me want to stay in bed even more.   
What fully took me from “5 more minutes” to shooting out of bed with an “OH GOOD MORNING!” was realizing that the hard heat pressed against my backside was from certain parts of Dan.

I am an adult, and he wasn’t the first person that I’d woken up with in such a state. It had just been an exceptionally long time since I’d been in a situation where that could happen, which made it unexpected enough to get me to bolt, not knowing where it would lead and not sure if I wanted to deal with it.

Not that dealing with it could really be avoided since my sudden movement immediately woke Dan up, just as startled. And once he sat up with a sleepy “wha-“ it didn’t take him long to realize why I shot out of bed so fast.

Both of our faces were red while he mumbled   
“Sorry, that uh— well.”  
“You’re a dude, it’s morning, I understand, it’s fine.” I spoke a little too fast making it clear that I felt just as awkward as he did.

“Still I’m sorry, I mean we- Y’know uh— Shit, like it’s different cus it’s not like you wanted to touch my dick so I shouldn’t—“ In the midst of his babbling he tried to get up, forgetting yet again that his foot wasn’t in the best condition, hopping and then sitting back on the bed with a sharp “FUCK” and a few high pitched whining sounds before he collected himself again. “Sorry, you know what I’m trying to say here right?”

“Consent matters?” I offered to his babbling moving back to the bed and motioning at him to lay back down so I could re-wrap his foot, he’d also kicked off his socks some time in the night and the gauze we were using to keep his toe in place wasn’t exactly made for doing that so it had become undone and tangled in the night.

“Yeah, ow— yeah it’s not like we’re y’know, so like me coping a feel in my sleep is maybe, kinda, not cool?”

“It’s… Fine.” We’d had the awkward conversation a few days ago of how we generally did not mind one another, maybe even thought the other was cute, but this was neither the time nor place to think about relationships or develop crushes. “I get it, we’re sharing a bed out of necessity not because we’re… Y’know… so you feel like you should keep that a little more- more controlled?”  
“Yes, thank you, yes. It’s rude of me, so I am sorry. I also really need to pee, which is most of what this is.”

I weren’t actually mad but I gave his leg a smack with a mockingly insulted. “Gee Thanks!” Making him backpedal fast.

“Not that I don’t think you’re hot! I mean you are! I could easily get all the boners for you… Um, I mean if you wanted cus I— Just I’m trying to- y’know not think about that- Like now’s not the time y’know and— and boy, I should just shut up shouldn’t I?”

I slid off of the lip of the bed laughing so hard at how he was spiralling.   
“Smooth~” 

Dan closed his eyes, biting his lip to try and keep himself from laughing at his own antics, shaking his head and giggling. 

Getting up the second time around I passed him his walking stick and brought him his shoes, leaving him to put them on and go to use the outhouse. 

Moving to the kitchen I pulled a chair over from the table and started to pull down all the food related supplies off the higher shelves. Some flour, generic baking items. On the very top shelf some long forgotten cake sprinkles and another mystery jar filled with a red sort of jelly that honestly looked like a jar of gelatinous blood. Oil’s, sugars, vinegar.

Getting a bowl and finding a spoon I started to mix up something that would be “maybe pancakes” with the canned peaches we’d brought from the office cabin. I had set the chair up by the stove to hold plates and my bowl, keeping the embers licking low on some twigs instead of stoking the fire too large while I cooked, when Dan came bursting back in.  
His hair was a white puff and he was covered in snow. 

“HOLY SHITBALLS IT IS NUTBAR OUT THERE.”

I had thought there was a bit of a storm, after all the wind was audible but his condition confirmed that we wouldn’t be going anywhere today.

I was glad we’d moved to this location when we had. For the wood this place had, the supplies, the added warmth of the smaller building. I’d never really lived this far up north but I knew that normal Canadian snow could be hell enough, proper northern blizzards? I couldn’t imagine especially with all the common comforts like cars and central heating that I’d taken for granted my whole life.

Dan sat at the table for breakfast, making happy noises over my baked fruit concoction loosely labeled a pancake.   
I wasn’t hopeless in the kitchen, but I’d never cooked anything other than hotdogs and marshmallows over an open flame, not even a BBQ since my Dad was the grill-master at our house growing up, even after moving out I never bothered to try and grill anything outdoors. So even though they were burnt on the outside and maybe a little doughy on the inside considering we were on Day 5 of ‘Bland soup and flat pop’ they were the best pancakes I’d ever tasted and Dan wholeheartedly agreed. 

With the storm going outside and nothing else to do I started to snoop through everything while Dan watched me do so from his spot on the bed. 

Pulling out all the clothing from the drawers we’d already dug through enough for Dan and I to get some oversized t-shirts and fleecy pants to sleep in the night before, but now we had the time to really go over everything.  
I threw Dan a pair of jeans and he held them up, spreading them out over his legs. They were for a man who was maybe around Dan’s height, but obviously a hundred pounds heavier.   
Not like that was hard since Dan was basically a stickbug.

“They might actually fit OVER your pants.”  
“Good! I will take em! Stupid holes in my jeans, my legs have been so cold.”

“We brought that sewing kit right? We should take a crack at like, fixing any holes so you can keep wearing them but they’re just a little more protective.”  
“Yeah I can do that, unless…” He trailed off looking at me expectantly.

“Don’t look at me, I failed home ec.”  
“Damn, well, I used to cosplay so I can at least stitch a straight line.”

I stopped what I was doing and stared at him, smirking.  
“What?”  
“You… Cosplay?”  
“Shut up.”  
“Oh no I would never judge or sit here and point at you and call you a Giant NNnnnneeeeerrrrrdddd” Sitting and pointing while saying that is exactly what I did.

“Damn right I’m a nerd!” He stuck his tongue out at me, not insulted in the least by my teasing. “Girl, I dress up in spandex, SPANDEX and get on a stage, and sing about dicks. Sticks and stones baby-girl, but names just turn me on~”

I gasped playfully covering my mouth with how scandalous it was.  
“AND and shame kink!”  
“That’s right darlin. You can’t even kinkshame me, I’ll LIKE it.” He taunted grinning and waggling his eyebrows at me.  
“Oh my! You dirty bird.” I teased back opening up the bottom drawer to pull out more clothes.

“Oh! I found some boots!”  
“What size?”  
“uhhh 12?”  
He clicked his tongue with disappointment. “Damn, too small.”  
“What? How big are your damn feet?”  
“14”  
“Jesus Fucking Christ Boy-o!”

“Well~” He started waggling his eyebrows at you. “Y’know what they say about guys with big feet.”

“No I have no idea what do they say?” I asked dryly making my face as flat an innocent as I could.

He coughed and looked away with a fake awkward “Can never find shoes in your size?”  
“Mm-hm, at least that much seems to be true. Looks like you are stuck with what you got” I giggled our teasing going back and fourth while we went through things to arrange them to our liking finding stuff we could use and putting back the things we couldn’t.

It was worrisome and a little scary, but the rest was good for our battered bodies. Dan kept his foot up while I puttered around in the morning, finally crawling back into bed with him he listened to me read out loud from the first Harry Potter book, the person who owned this cabin had the first one along with his eclectic sets of harlequin romance novels, and gas station best sellers (probably how Harry Potter and unfortunately Fifty Shades of Grey arrived here.) 

He worked on sewing the holes his pants legs shut, adding patches where he could, going through and fixing anything to the best of his ability while I made lunch, brought in more wood from outside to dry out, and bring in more snow to melt since while the kitchen sink drained, it didn’t supply any water.

We talked about movies, books, politics, family, jobs, until we lapsed into a quiet, eventually curling back up into bed as the sun went down only to wake up to the same storm.

Having a full day of actual comfort already, now I could feel things that I kept from my mind before crawling back to me.

Mostly how oily my hair was and that I could feel myself breaking out along my scalp, and even other places on my body where I didn’t usually get zits but 6 days of stewing in your own body would do that eventually.

There was a large metal pot, probably for roasting turkey or ham or maybe wild game of some sort, but for my purpose it was more than big enough that I could wash undergarments, my hair, and give myself a sponge bath by the fire.

“Dan.” I announced after filling every container I could with snow and finally getting enough to fill the entire pot with steaming water, plus a few extra. 

“Hm?” He’d been humming to himself most of the morning, writing or doodling in the notebook he had, making music or comedy or something since occasionally he’d repeat a few lines but he was mostly keeping it to himself.   
“How… Engrossed in that are you?”

Now he looked up puzzled by what I’d been working on. “Why? What do you need?”  
“For you to close your eyes until I tell you otherwise?”

He looked confused, gears turning as he considered he scene before him. All the water, towels and blankets laid out…

Sadly detective he was not.  
“Why?” He asked again now looking suspicious.

“I want to wash off and wash my things.”  
“OOH! Ok yeah I can- can y’know keep my eyes to myself.” He giggled and put his notebook to the side, getting up to crawl under the blanket he put it over his head.   
“Is this okay? I promise not to peak.”

It was as good as I was going to get. “It’s fine, thank you.”

I stripped down as fast as I could, which wasn’t very fast since I still hurt. The welts all across my body were moving from black to a rainbow of colours. Greens, reds, purples, blues, yellows, all painful but at least healing. It was still chilly in the room once I was naked and putting water on me, but the water was hot and I scrubbed at myself gently using a little dish soap on my body and in my hair for lack of anything better.

It definitely stripped the oily feeling off me, instead leaving me a little too dry skinned once I’d finished. Rubbing the smallest amount of cooking oil onto my feet before putting on some too-big fresh socks and an oversized shirt I gave Dan the ok to come out while I tossed my underwear, bra, and the clothing I’d been wearing before into the pot of leftover water to scrub them clean as well as I could.

Dan didn’t re-appear even after I was done, leaving things hanging over the chairs positioned by the fire to dry.

“Dan?”  
He snorted and took a deep breath mumbling something as I pulled back the blanket, smiling since he’d fallen asleep waiting for me. 

“I can boil some more water, do you want to give yourself a wash?” It was a question, but now that I was clean, I could actually smell him so it would become a more insistent request had he rejected it.

“Mm yeah sounds awesome.” He yawned 

I moved things around, throwing the used water outside as fast as I could with an indignant battle screech against the cold since I’d smartly decided that doing it pantsless and shoeless was the way to go. And then setting Dan up with a fresh pot of hot water by the fire. 

“You found a toothbrush!” He stated looking into one of my pans that I had boiling, the toothbrush sitting at the bottom of it.  
“Yeaaaa… I don’t know what it was last used for though. I found a little toothpaste in the junk drawer too, not much but I just put some on a cloth and used that so-“ I waved my hand at the brush indicating he could use it if he wanted to chance it.

He looked at it forlornly, you never really realized how much you’d miss little things, like brushing your teeth, until you couldn’t anymore.

“I’m good.” He sighed, “Any toothpaste left?”   
“Yeah, it’s got a squeeze or two left in it.” I was planning on cutting the end off it and diluting any residue left in it with water. I didn’t know how much you needed toothpaste to keep a healthy mouth, for sake of mouth feel I’d just been rinsing with water and rubbing my teeth with a clean rag so they didn’t have that scummy feeling all the time. Dan had been doing much the same, so having the added mint would be nice for a while, after that…  
Well I guess there was some mint tea in the cupboard. 

With him set up I crawled into the bed, this cabin was warmer but the blast from opening the door and the fact that I was only wearing an oversized t-shirt (that hit my knees but still, that was it) I wasn’t the warmest thing in the world. 

Blanket over my head I rolled around for a bit, the bed kind of stank now that I could smell it, not horribly but it did have a musty, sour smell from lack of use combined then with our dirty bodies having been in it.

“Ugh… Are you done yet? It’s kinda gross under here I wanna flip the sheets or something.” 

“Jeeze keep your panties on! I’ve barely got my jacket off.”

I made an obnoxious whining noise getting him to laugh.  
“Y’know what? I’m not shy! You can come up I don’t care.” 

Pulling the blankets off of me I sat up with a grin. “Ooh~ Gonna give me a show Mr. Avidan?”

He laughed but then bit his lip giving me a cheeky grin and a raised eyebrow. “You want one baby-girl?”

I was not expecting that. 

The smirk, how his voice dropped, the way his hand was resting on his stomach now pulling his t-shirt up just enough to give me a small peak of skin there. 

“Uh.”

That was the best my brain could come up with, so zeroed in on that little patch of skin between his low hanging jeans and the slowly raising edge of his shirt. 

The bruising he had was just as bad as my own, but he was still beautiful. All hips, angles, and sharp edges, but as he pulled his shirt off I could see there was muscle too in how his stomach flexed as his hips started a gentle sway, giving me the show I’d asked for.

“You like that? You want me to- um-“ He stopped.  
Arms raised most of the way over his head he wriggled in a very not sexy way making a soft frustrated sound. I let out an unintended bark of laughter thinking he’d gotten his fluffy ass hair caught.  
“Um.” He said louder now just making me laugh harder, giggling out little apologies but not sorry enough to stop. “My arms hurt and I’m stuck.” He whined making me feel bad but not really.

“Ok ok.” Giggling still I got up and helped him, guiding him to sit in a chair while I carefully helped tug his shirt off gently seeing a particularly large welt from his ribs up his shoulder blade. The muscles probably were bruised deep, making a full range of movement difficult. 

The two of you were so fucking lucky.

“I see you are stunned into a seduced silence by my ruggedly good looks?” He grinned trying to return to playful flirtation.  
“Is this okay?”

He looked at it, really now was the first time we were both seeing even our own bodies since the crash. We’d seen how bad our legs had gotten banged up the first night but hadn’t looked at our torsos, hadn’t seen what they looked like after our clothing had dried and we’d put them back on, not to take them off in full light until now.

“Yeah? I mean, it hurts but, what doesn’t?”

I kept staring at it, gently laying my hand there, it didn’t feel hot or anything, but I just didn’t know enough about the human body to know if this colour was unusual or not, I sort of wished I was a doctor.

“Hey, hey come here.” Dan put a hand over mine, turning around to pull me closer. “I’m okay, see? I’m okay.”

I sniffled, feeling emotional, bouncing between too many feelings and getting overwhelmed by everything. “No you’re not.”  
“I am.”  
“No… You’re not ok, you stink so bad.” I cough-laughed, trying to pull back but he just held on even harder. 

“OH DO I?” He was laughing, rocking me side to side while I struggled gently.

Breaking away he took a final laughing swipe at me and I let out the most embarrassing squeal as his hand caught my ass maybe a little harder than he’d intended.   
Jumping onto the bed I looked at Dan, stared back at me, putting his hands delicately across his chest with a scolding “Put that blanket over your head you peeping tom!”

I stuck my tongue out but obeyed, for the most part, not really putting my head under but at least laying down and closing my eyes, dozing off in the warm blankets and the background noise of Dan humming to himself while he washed.

The smell of something that seemed like off stew combined with how humid it was woke me up from my nap. 

“What time is it?” I yawned stretching and crawling out of the bed.  
Dan made an ‘I don’t know’ grunt stooped over the fire cooking something.  
“What /are/ you doing?”

I’d gotten up and moved closer seeing a strange brewing pot of stew that just smelled weird

“I was kind of bored and didn’t want to wake you so I started poking around too and opened one of those mystery cans.”  
“Oh no.”  
“What? They weren’t expired.”  
“Yeah but what the hell is it?”  
“Beef stew I think? I mean-“ He poked around it. “Carrot, beef, potato. Not so scary.”  
“Why does it smell like that?”  
“Well.” Dan pulled it off the grill and put it on a dish towel on the chair waiting for it. “Either because it’s a shitty brand, or has gone bad, or- and don’t judge me, OR, I’m just a shitty cook and I MAY have burned it.”  
“Oh bra-vo.”  
“Mmmmsuckit?”

Even though supplies were better here, neither of us really wanted to say that we weren’t in a position to waste anything. We didn’t know how long this storm would last, how long it would take rescue to come. So I sat down on the floor with Dan and waited for him to take the first bite, while he looked at me like I was going to do it.

“Nuh-uh, you made it, you eat it first.”  
“Yeah but I made it, taste my cooking!”  
“Yeeenah?”  
“Come on, I made it for you!”  
“I will not drink your hot kool-aid”

Dan laughed, getting the reference he’d been maybe intentionally making or not.

“Come on, you made it, cooks gotta taste what they make. So say Gordon Ramsey” I took a little spoonful and moved it towards him. “Here comes the airplane~”

Laughing he rolled his eyes but opened his mouth, letting me feed him, I didn’t know if I just gave him the spoon too fast, or if it was really that bad, but he gagged a little.

“This is dog food.” Dan said flatly. “And I mean that literally, not as in it tastes bad, I recognize the brand.”  
“You recognize the brand?”  
“Yeah”  
“By TASTE?”

He was quiet for a moment, making a face debating if he wanted to admit to this or not, but then launched into a story of his dogs, friends dogs, and of course how at one time he had tasted dog food. (Because really what pet owner hasn’t?)

I laughed at him and his story, getting up to at least throw some garlic, salt and pepper in the pot and we both ate it anyway, it was still pretty bad, and it was pretty 50/50 on if the general badness of it was due to it being burnt on the bottom, or if it was just because it was dog food.

“Oh, you know what I forgot about that would make this better?!”

Dan looked up from poking at the pot to look at me as I jumped up and pulled out a different kind of pot.

He started laughing “Oh man, oh man I forgot you had that too. Oh boy I dunno.”

He held out his hand and I tossed him the bag, letting him sniff it and cough. “Oh my god that is some skunk ass shit jesus.”

“C’mon, you gonna ride this ganga gravy train with me?”  
He wheezed with giggles as I said that, laughing harder as that was the only pot euphemism I could think of and floundered for more, making things up that just got weirder.  
“Jump on that green bling snake? Snoop da whoop with sweet Mary Jane?”

“Have you EVER smoked pot in your life?”  
“I have.”

He did not believe me and my protests of insisting I had just made him roll his eyes.

“I have! My sister hot boxed me in her car with her friends when I was like 17.”  
“That does not count.”

Dan insisted that I could go hard on my own but he didn’t really want any, however my failure of trying to roll made Dan smack my hands away rolling the both of us. 

I used some tongs from the kitchen to fish out a little ember from the stove to light my blunt, taking a deep hit and staring at Dan while I held it his eyes widening as I kept it in for a count of ten before I coughed, tears running down my face with how hard I was dying from my hit.

He got the full force of my middle finger a I choked holding out the blunt to him.  
“Lets see you do better.”  
“Nah, I’m good.”  
“Wuss.”  
“Woah! Aren’t you a Teacher?”  
“Art teacher remember? My sister was the FIRST time I got high, after that I used to buy pot off my professor in university.”   
“Jesus.” 

I took another hit, I hadn’t smoked much in university, and hadn’t really smoked since, two shots in and I could already feel I was done.   
“No peer pressure but you’re cool if you do.” I taunted.

He stared at me, giving me a bit of a stink eye before taking the joint I held out to him.   
“One.” He said warningly taking his hit and immediately butting it out on the stone fireplace.

Holding up his fingers he counted out ten, and then gave me a middle finger salute of eleven and twelve before blowing out two smoke rings. 

I’d started clapping before he started coughing, gasping just as hard as I had been, swapping over to laughing at him instead. 

It took a few minutes before the smoke gave us the passion to finish the dog food stew off. After all neither of wanted wanted to waste it, still scared about what was going to happen if the storm kept going, if rescue never came, if- if- if a thousand things.

The weed helped calm those fears as well.

Plus, however hilarious Dan was before, when I was stoned he was even funnier. Talking more while wrapped up in bed, about his stoner days and mine, stupid giggly stories, that brought us closer together, physically as well. I’d still not changed into anything else, and Dan was only in a too large pair of sweat pants. Fingers trailing over exposed skin, looks that were too long before dissolving into giggles and one more story. 

The lightest brush of lips.

Dan pulled away first, I could feel the edge of his frustration at doing so against my leg but he put his thumb on my bottom lip, keeping me back, keeping himself back.

“Hey, not… Not while we’re, y’know. Stupid okay?”

I understood, I was horny but I was also both not high enough to realize that I was high enough not to make a smart decision right now. Parting my lips Dan watched me with wide eyes as I coaxed his thumb into my mouth.

And then bit him.

“OW!”

It wasn’t actually hard, just enough to get us away from the edge of where we were and back into safe territory of jokes and laughter.

It couldn’t all be fun, as we started to level down we talked more seriously about the more immediate future.

“When I was getting wood the other day, I didn’t go far from the cabin, but I saw there were some train tracks up the hill.”  
“Really?” I thought about it, the biggest reason I hadn’t suggested leaving was in part because of the snow but also because I hadn’t seen any kind of road, without one we would absolutely get lost and die. “Tracks gotta go somewhere.”  
“Do you think we should follow them?”  
“Maybe? Pack up some of the food we have, that sleeping bag. If we set out just as the sun goes up we could hit at least 30km in a day even with your foot.”

I left out the idea of not finding anything, about either needing to turn back or just die trying, unfortunately Dan was thinking along those same lines already.

“What- What if we don’t find anything?”

“We-” I didn’t want to lie. “We could choose, either walk for like a day, maybe two and then come back if we don’t find anything, that’s about 60km up the track. If we don’t spot anything then- Then we come back. I don’t know how much food we have but, we try ice fishing, I mean, those huts are there for a reason. Keep waiting, or try in the other direction.” 

He made a noise that sounded like some kind of agreement, not much else you could really do except survive any way you could figure out how to.

“Someone will come.” I put my hand on his face, getting him to focus on me. “If there is anyone out there to come, someone /will/ come.”

Dan put his hand over mine, pulling it down to his lips to give my knuckles a kiss. 

“Push come shove I eat you.” Grinning I pulled his hand towards me giving his knuckles a little nibble. The weed was helping me feel pretty numb inside but letting some emotions out, wanting to keep them from turning too serious, from us getting too desperate just yet. “You already gave me permission to remember?”

He smiled, halfway to okay or maybe all the way not.   
But at least he smiled.


	7. The Cold (Day 7)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -October 18 2017 edit.

It felt tense that morning.

It had nothing to do with us getting high, or even more handsy than we meant to. We’d had a serious talk and we both remembered it as we woke up in unison the moment the wind stopped, the sudden switch to quiet after two days of constant white noise jolting us awake.

In the dim-near-dark grey light of the sun barely risen I touched Dan, checking that he too was awake.

“Today?”  
“Yeah.”

We were going to try to walk the tracks.

I got up, pulling on my now dry and deliciously fire warmed clothing, layering up thick and putting out more layers to bring with us. Dan was rolling some things into the backpack I’d found. Extra blankets, the sleeping bag, the food that we could just eat without needing much prep beyond the can itself and a fire. 

Quickly I cooked up the last of the flour, making tough little fried pieces of flatbread, packing now I realized that maybe it was a good thing we were going. Simply packing for one day there and one day back I could see we were taking nearly half of our food with us. I could only hope we would be able to find someone, or at least find something to scavenge. 

I hated that it was winter. If it was summer I knew the rescue would be here already, and if this was some end of the world scenario then I knew that at least what little knowledge I had of Canadian flora and fauna would allow us to survive a little longer on what we had. But in the middle of the snow there was nothing that could be foraged for, at least nothing that I knew of, being no expert there were things that I could vaguely remember from movies that I would dare not try in practicality.

“Left or right.” I asked as Dan lead us to the train tracks, looking down in both directions seeing nothing in the distance but wood and snow either way it didn’t matter to me.

“Left?” Dan offered with no care either way himself, choosing simply his dominate hand. His choice was as good as a flip of a coin we didn’t have, we didn’t know what lead down either path so either one was just as good or just as bad.

It was silent for a long while, nothing but the crunch of snow as the sun continued to rise over the mountains, we were making good time.

Dan on occasion had been humming a little tune under his breath, and while my brain didn’t really register it, I found the tune hooking into my head until I was singing it louder.

“You like Rush?” He finally asked.  
“Not really, why would you think that?”

He looked a little surprised, “You were humming Tom Sawyer.”

Thinking about it I realized that was the name of the song that had been stuck in my head. Well not the whole song, just the first rift and then it would loop back to the beginning endlessly over and over until Dan had mentioned it by name letting me hook the rest of the tune past the first line. 

“Oh yeah there eh, they’re Canadian so we get them on the radio all the time, don’t y’know. I think my mom has one of their records.”  
“Ah.”  
“Were you humming the same song?”  
“Yeah. Little bit I think?”  
“Probably where I got it from then.”  
“You’re not a fan?”  
“I mean I don’t mind em, but I grew up more with Our Lady Peace, and BIF. You?”  
“Oh boy like you wouldn’t fucking BELIEVE!” Dan slowed down to look at me getting animated about it. “Biggest fan since for like ever, I’ve even gotten to see them in concert and meet them a few times, they’re my favourite band.”  
“Aww, y’know I’ll ask my mom if she still has that record, if you don’t have it I’ll give it to you.”  
“I probably have it but if I don’t, super thanks, I will always take an original Rush vinyl. What’s you—“

His question cut off as we rounded a bend in the tracks moving past a wall of rocks now seeing on the tracks yet another chunk of the plane ahead, a lot of it was covered in snow but based on the amount of crows circling I knew a lot of those lumps on the ground weren’t just chunks of metal.

Before it just hit me, but now I set my mind over consciously to let that internal cold pull my emotions away, but still I took Dan’s hand knowing that he didn’t seem to enter that strange state of distant calm as I did.  
He looked at me, his jaw set, brows furrowed with concern and fear. Squeezing my hand in gratitude we walked forward together.

This part of the plane was a bit more intact compared to our section or the small fragment that had hit the other cabins. Even after the blizzard we could see the coloured corners of intact bits of luggage tossed wide from the impact site along with the snow covered heaps that were either bags or the bodies. 

While I slowed Dan didn’t seem interested in investigating which small piles were bags and which might not be, trying to get around it all with his head down as fast as possible.  
A chilling part of me scoffed at him, how he talked before about wanting to help people, but how could he help when faced with the destruction he just put his head down and tried to rush by? What if someone here was still barely alive and he walked right past them?

Letting his hand slip from mine I poked around a few snow piles, picking the ones that were longer, looked more like people.

I didn’t need to check for pulses, frozen solid all I was really doing was exposing them for the birds if anything.

Dan watched me, but he didn’t have to wait long. After the third body even I could register the futility in trying to check every person here. 

If anyone survived this long, they wouldn’t be here.

Standing up I looked at Dan, his face was probably as blank as mine, he broke eye contact first, turning and moving forward toward the tunnel that the tracks lead into.

I still stood there, looking around. There were a lot of random things here, maybe some would be useful? Food or… Something? Now choosing the smaller piles that I knew wouldn’t be people, dusting off some hopefuls with my foot, I found an intact backpack and grabbed it without looking inside. I wasn’t that interested in the contents, more more just wanting the bag. 

It wasn’t much of a spat but when we’d left Dan had hoisted the bag onto his back and wouldn’t listen to me argue that he should give it to me, instead he just walked out of the cabin and started leading the way across the lake towards the train tracks giving me no choice but to follow.

I didn’t want Dan to have to carry all the supplies because with only one bag there was really no choice, but I also didn’t want to nag because he sure seemed to be stubborn about doing it. Now that we had a second pack I could maybe convince him to split some of those items with me, or at least if we found anything else I could put them into my bag.

Jogging I caught up to Dan who was crouched down looking at something in the tunnel.

“They-” He whispered staring at the pile of jackets and bits of clothing that underneath was hiding a person.

Someone who had survived the fall and had been able to make it into the tunnel to get out of the wind, build themselves a nest to try and survive the cold.

Dan had already peeled back the jackets to find the body of a woman who just looked like she was sleeping. Eyes peacefully closed, no pain on her face.

“If-If we came— If we just came sooner—“ He choked on his own words getting up to walk away deeper into the tunnel leaving me behind.

“Dan… DAN!” I ran after him, almost falling when I reached out to grab his arm and he pushed me away. “Dan there was nothing we could do, they probably died that first night, the first night WE almost died too!”

He kept walking, head down, ignoring me while I tried to convince him, and myself that we'd done our best.

It might have been true, but it didn’t mean either of us believed it.

“There was nothing we could do.”

—

The walk continued silently for at least an hour.  
I tried feebly to sing at some points, to hum, to talk, anything to pull Dan out of his head but he wouldn’t budge, and even with his foot, he seemed to be ignoring the pain so it was hard to keep up with his longer legs pushing through the snow, and keep up useless forced prattle that I wasn’t really feeling myself.

It wasn’t bad walking, Dan was still pretty slow and on the other side of the tunnel we’d come to an open swampland like prairie. There were trees around, mostly fallen or dried out, which meant there was no cover from the wind. 

The upside was that the tracks were mostly clear of snow so it was easy walking, the downside was.

Wind.

Thankfully it wasn’t too bad today, I could imagine it being worse, if we were caught out in a blizzard like the night before the wind would cut through all our layers leaving us frozen within minutes. Today the sky was blue and the sun out helping keep us warm, but with a perfectly clear view, and very little to see all around except the edges of the mountain range far off in the distance, it was becoming clear that maybe this was the wrong direction to choose with no sign of any human habitation for miles of flatland all around.

Still, I was going to give it until at least the sun was at the highest point in the sky, at least noon, before asking to turn back if it looked like the day would be a total wash. With the pace we were going I was guessing we’d make it about 20km by then? Take a good rest and then get the 20km back would be a rough day, but not impossible.

I didn’t want to spend the night outside, especially out here since there was almost no place to find cover.

The bag I’d picked up wasn’t empty, it’s weight starting to get to me, and Dan didn’t look like he was going to stop walking anytime soon. I felt like he should rest more, walk slower considering his foot, but he seemed determined to cover as much land as he could while he was able.

Thoroughly done with being ignored I decided to ignore him, lagging behind to flip the bag off my back and onto my chest so I could unzip it, slowly walking while going through it.  
Either Dan would realize I’d slowed and do so himself, or he’d walk until he was tired and I’d eventually catch up.  
It was flat and there wasn’t much around so it wasn’t like I’d lose him.

Opening the bag my hand hit something cloth but also hard, pulling it out it was a laptop wrapped in a faux leather jacket. The laptop was useless so that was a good few pounds I dropped to the side of the track, but the jacket also had a soft faux fur interior lining that was perfect for me.  
It was a men’s jacket, much too big normally but with all the layers I had on already the added size was perfect and the leather was just what I needed to stop the wind from passing through my clothing.  
Stopping I put it on over my current jacket, immediately feeling the difference as the fake leather stopped the wind from cutting through my thin hoodie. 

A bright red scarf was also balled up inside, a great find since I’d given Dan the scarf from the cabin, and it helped pin down the blanket hood I had on to add a layer of protection to my ears. 

The outer pockets of the backpack had a travel pack of toiletries, it looked like one of the little packages they gave people in first class since it had the airline logo on the bag. Inside was a tiny little toothpaste and a toothbrush, a hand lotion, chapstick, a wet-wipe makeup removal sheet, and a huge pair of pretty decently thick socks. 

I’d looked at the first or business class for this flight but it was ridiculous, the toiletry pack didn’t seem like it was worth the extra $3000 for the upgrade until right now when it was worth every penny.

Especially the socks.

Dan had thankfully slowed enough for me to catch up to him, he’d given me back my gloves and we hadn’t found any others at the cabin. There had been a few things there, but they were still limited and extra socks were also not one of the things found. 

“Put em on your hands.” I insisted thrusting the socks at him for makeshift gloves since he just had his hands up his sleeves. 

He looked at me with the new jacket on, and the bag, and the socks, the way his face looked strangely sour and almost mad I felt like he was about to refuse them. 

A part of me felt a strange strangled fear like he was about to get angry and I would get in trouble for the theft. Remembering again the first night, the body I’d so carelessly gone over to steal the hat off of. 

Was he seeing me now for the monster I was?

He took the socks with a quiet “Thank you.” stuffing his hands in them to add any extra protection on him.

“There’s something up ahead, lets get there and talk.”

I nodded, following behind him with the now almost-empty bag. If he was willing to stop, I could at least transfer out some of the water he was carrying or something to lighten his burden.  
Although the “Lets talk” tone of his voice made me want to not stop at all.

The things he saw were some train cars, stacked up randomly and haphazardly on the side of the track, from the distance I had assumed them to be rocks, some kind of hill, but seeing they were train cars it gave me more hope that people had to be nearby. 

Getting closer I could see of the cars looked clear knocked over, maybe blown off the track by the wind and abandoned there, the other sat, mired in the mud, the door open, inviting the two of us in to get out of the wind.

Inside was a surprise, a fire barrel with some wood and coal scattered around, another sleeping bag laid out, a plastic container in one corner with a smaller backpack leaned up against it.  
Clearly this was some kind of hobo shanty, or based also on the scattered shell casings maybe a hunters stopping point? Still these train cars had not been in use for possibly decades which meant there may not have been any people here, other than those passing through, in a long time.

Not even feeling a twinge of guilt I opened the plastic case stored to the side, curiosity getting the better of me quite easily. Inside were some some useful things that anyone staying here would need. Some matches, lighter fluid, extra food.

The worrisome point was the sheer amount of drugs also stacked up in there.

“Is- Is this… Meth?” I held up a baggy of what was a very small amount of what looked like blue sugar.

Dan’s mouth fell open as he looked into the bin and saw what you were holding, and how much was still in there.

“Holy fuck! Put that down!” Dan took a step toward me, like he was going to slap the drugs out of my hand before his eyes went even wider and he went back to the entrance to look outside, watching now for anyone who might suddenly show up, as though any moment a bunch of drug runners were going to swoop down on us for daring to touch their stash. But we’d walked hours to get there and it was nothing but swamp and snow for miles around, it wasn’t exactly like anyone was going to sneak up on us.

“Jesus… I guess this is some kind of drug drop or someplace people come and get fucked up? Thats… That’s a lot of meth for one person though. Isn’t it?” I had no idea, Dan had spoken about watching Breaking Bad so he would know far more than I would. “That’s gotta mean we’re kinda close to a town right? Or something?”  
Hopefully not just some hovel of drug addicts I could at least hope.

“Yeah probably? We shouldn’t touch anything, in case someone comes back and notices.”  
“Yeah. Last thing we need is some meth-head thinking we fucked with his stash coming after us in the middle of a blizzard.”

“Yeah.” Dan looked around the train car again, waiting for someone to jump out from the shadows, or maybe just not wanting to face the ghosts of his own mind.

“I’m sorry.” He finally spoke looking back outside one last time before looking at me. “I’m sorry I’m acting like an asshole right now.”  
“It’s okay-“

“No, it’s not.” He interrupted me a little sharp but took a breath to calm himself. “I know— I know that we couldn’t have saved those people, the ones in our section, or those we just passed. We didn’t know and if we did what could we have done? I know, this and I— I just-“ He ran his hand up into his hat fidgeting and wincing as he hit his injury. 

“You’re just so calm about all this. Like- like not freaking out at every little fucking thing like I am, I am- I am a /fucking/ mess and you’re still all together and because you’re just so calm like— I KNOW it’s not your fault but I feel like- I feel like I keep trying to take it out on you, and I shouldn’t, and I’m so, so sorry.”

I looked at his feet, quiet for long enough to watch him shuffle uncomfortable and finally beg. “Say something please?”

“I’m not calm.” I offered softly, thinking carefully about my words. “When this stuff happens I just— go numb. Everything is there, it’s just cold and frozen and waiting and honestly if I stop moving, if I wake up and fully realize this ISN’T a dream? Dude I—“ 

I had to stop and take a shuddering breath, feeling all those emotions I was so carefully keeping on ice bubbling up and I couldn’t let that happen. Once that can was open there was no going back and I had a feeling I would probably ball up screaming and not stop for a very, very long time once I really faced what was happening out here.

“Hey—“ Dan started, moving closer but I stepped back and he stopped.

“Look. Dan. Just- Blame me if it keeps you moving forward, because that’s all I can do right now okay? Don’t!”  
I stepped back again shouting at him to stop as he moved forward once more. I knew he was trying to offer comfort, that he could see he’d started to break something but I couldn’t take kindness, not right now.

“Don’t because I can’t right now okay?”  
He nodded stepping back giving me my space, understanding that I wasn’t all that he thought I was, but maybe seeing even more of me because of that.

“When we get to town, I am going to drink myself blind, and you’re gonna hold my hair while I puke, in a room with a heater set to 40 degrees, and then we can talk about coulda’shoulda’woulda’s and cry and scream and break down. But until then let me be numb, and you can be angry, and we just deal with it until then okay?”

“Okay.” He sounded guilty but knew that this was the best that things were going to get, at least until we got out of here.

“Now gimmie at least one of those water jugs, now that I have this backpack, it’s not fair for you to be carrying all that shit.”

Dan stared at me for a long moment, seeing the change in topic, my clear attempt to shove everything away from being serious so we could get out of this dark place.

“Nah.”

He hopped outside the train car and started walking again, his sudden casual tone and odd action surprising me.

“What?!” Chasing him down I yelled at him. “Whadda yah mean ’Nah?’ gimmie a jug!”

“You want em? You want my big jugs?” He turned so I could see him squeeze his chest startling both of us into sudden howling laughter. Needing something to break the mood, to set things back right again.

“Maybe you can HAVE my jugs I’M A STRONG INDEPENDENT MAN WHO DON’T NEED SOMEONE JUST AFTER MY HUGE JUGS!”  
“Baby please gimmie dem jugs, you know you want to, it’d be so good!”

We kept walking, giggling and making jokes about maybe him giving me a little wood instead, my hand eventually reaching out to take his. Emotional storm passed while we could see on the horizon a cloudy one starting up again.

“What’s that up ahead?”  
“Is it…” Dan squinted his hand going a little limp in yours as his steps slowed, both of us had shit eyesight but at least he had a little higher of a vantage point to see. “More of the airplane?”  
“I dunno, do— I’ll go check.”  
“No it’s okay, we’ll go.”

He sped up with me, needing to go this way anyway so there was really no reason for him to lag so far behind, the sun was past the point where I wanted to turn back or at least consider finding shelter, especially since I didn’t like the look of the clouds moving closer. Depending on what was ahead, how close we were to a fresh cropping of mountain range, if we kept going we’d probably spend the night here, if we went back we’d probably spend the night in the railway car.

As we got nearer to the destruction it was easy to see it wasn’t actually the airplane knocked over, but a bunch of trees. A logging cart for a train had jumped the track here scattering logs everywhere, smashed bits of wood and metal and large sections of the track itself ripped up.

Because the tunnel ahead that the train had been trying to pass through HAD been hit with a chunk of the airplane, or at least a big enough piece to cause a rockslide to completely smash it shut, cutting the train that must have been moving along the tracks in half.

Ducking under a tree branch, ignoring Dan yelling to be careful I clamoured over rocks and bits of smashed train to see that the tunnel was indeed fully blocked off, probably collapsed deep inside, unstable and impassable now.

Surrounded by a range of mountains it would be a while before the tunnel would be cleared, why there were no helicopters, no crew on this side of the mountain felt strange, surprising, but also felt like bad answers to questions you had.

Where was the rescue? Blocked.  
When were they coming? Maybe never.  
What happened?  
What HAPPENED??

I could hear Dan calling my name, begging me to come down, CAREFULLY.  
It was his voice sounding so small and so scared, assuring you things were going to be okay, I could hear the edge of desperation in him, looking down and realizing what he was looking at.

I’d climbed high enough that one slip, accidental or not, could…

Carefully I climbed back down, allowing myself to be wrapped up in Dan’s arms once I was close enough for him to grab me, mind completely elsewhere while he whispered assurances that the two of us were still going to be okay, that we’d find another way. 

I wasn’t thinking too much on this moment. A visual representation of my mind at the moment would have been a tv screen full of static.

What do we do?

“We go back.” Dan whispered making me realize I’d spoken out loud. “We can go back and- and we’ll try the other direction. We’ll be okay, I promise.”

These weren’t promises that he could make but I took them anyway. 

“We’ve still got food at the house.” I mumbled, now forcing myself to think. “We can check all the bags at that crash site, and maybe find something…”

I trailed off staring at the rocks blocking the path wondering if anyone was on the other side trying to clear the way. 

/Rescue isn’t coming, we’re going to die out here./ 

The face of the sleeping woman in the tunnel enveloped my mind.

/Did it hurt to die that way?/

Dan was talking, realized I wasn’t listening to him and pulled back, looking at me. I could feel his hands on my face turning it to look at him. I was a million miles away, quiet and calm, but not actually there with him there in the slightest.

“Sorry what?” I finally focused on him, the material of the socks itchy on my cheeks.

He looked worried, so I smiled putting my hands on his trying to assure him that I was okay, maybe not quite focused and trying to handle the bad news in my own way. But he could tell I was scared, and I could tell he was too.

“Sorry. It’s okay, I’m okay.” I focused back on him, this wasn’t the time to be losing it, we needed to focus. “We’ll take what we can try going the other direction tomorrow, if we don’t find anything… Then we start fishing.”

He hesitantly smiled back, probably as fake as my own but we needed to reassure one another.  
“Lucky for me, I love sushi!”

—

Wandering around the wreak I wasn’t going to let us leave without making sure we’d picked the area clean of anything useful, and left a message there for any possible people who came this way so they knew, someone survived, someone was waiting, it was hard to convey the desire for them to hurry.

/2 alive, cabin at lake, help/ 

I didn’t expect much from the wreckage here, these train cars carried nothing but logs too large to be cut down to wood burning size, their branches already mostly sawed off so there was little to be salvaged other than a few chips and fractured chunks. 

Climbing up higher onto some of the logs I was able to spot another hunter’s blind just a few yards away from where we were. I didn’t expect much but I remembered the chocolate bar and bandaids at the first one, even if there was just another stash of weed I’d be happy. I wasn’t completely just looking to get high but I was stressed and last night had been the first night where I could really just relax and not lose myself when thinking or talking about how bad our situation was.

“I’ll be right back.” I called down to Dan whom I could see was picking through a few shattered pieces of wood that would be small enough to fit in his backpack, and the stove back at the cabin.

Clamouring down I slid down the small embarkment to the tracks and jogged over to the blind, climbing up inside and finding another emergency medical kit nailed to the wall, but it must have been the second stash point from whomever lived in the old train car because it wasn’t filled with anything of use, just a single taped up package filled with more smaller packaged blue crystals.

I cussed, still worried but now wondering if maybe it was a good thing this direction was closed off. With this many drugs here the first people we’d run into coming this way would absolutely be the drug dealers trying to clear our their stashes before rescuers came crawling all over the mountains.

I wondered if that was something that was keeping rescuers at bay.

“Anything?!” Dan yelled from the tracks.  
“More Meth!” I yelled back.

I couldn’t really hear him but from the way Dan threw one arm into the air you knew he was just as mad as I was.

A waste of time that we didn’t have seeing as the wind was was picking up, I started to head back to Dan only to hear a gunshot crack through the air.

And for the whole world to go dark and cold.


	8. The Fear (Day 7 + Days 8, 9, and 10)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited October 19, 2017  
> -Changed order of some things.

A crack like a gunshot and a tiny dog yelp.

Then nothing.

That’s what Dan heard, turning back around to see her gone and a black hole where she had been standing instead. It wasn’t until she resurfaced, grabbing onto the lip of the hole, kicking and struggling to drag herself out that he realized what had happened.

That field wasn’t a field, it was a pond covered in snow.

Yet he stood there, stupidly frozen watching while the ice she was holding broke and she slid back under a second time, finally pushing him into action dropping his backpack as he ran down towards the pond.

The ice gave a warning groan the moment he stepped on it just as she broke surface again, closer to the edge, where the water was shallow enough for her to jump higher out of it, close enough for Dan to drop down on his stomach and reach out to her flailing arms, grabbing her hand and dragging her to shore and safety.

“Fuck, fuck, are you okay? What do I do? What do I do?” He panicked pulling her away from the waters edge and just sitting there with her.

She had no answers for him, coughing up water, teeth clacking so hard he worried she was going to chip one, clinging to him, already soaking his jeans, the wet cold bad enough he almost wanted to push her away to make it stop, and she was coated in it.

“C’mon… C’mon we gotta, we gotta- We gotta.”  
He needed to get her inside, get her warm and dry but.

But where? Nowhere was warm.

She whined a protest as he hustled her to her feet, half dragging, half carrying her, begging and pleading for her to keep moving back along the tracks, back to the train cars where there was the wood and a fire barrel. 

It was the closest thing, they were hours away from the cabin, no matter how much he might have been deluding himself about everything, even Dan knew she’d never make it there like this.

“Fucking COME ON!” Angrily cursing at her as she fell he yelled in frustration, getting more scared as she mumbled stupidly;

“Sssleepy, five minis kay?”  
Her shaking had stopped and she was just limply trying to obey his rough demands to hurry to the shelter.

Guilt struck him immediately,  
/what if the last thing I say to her is…/

“Come on, come on baby-girl, I got you, it’s okay, I got you, please- please-”

She was heavier than the backpack, wet and limp and cold but he got her to move enough to hoist her up onto his back, hunched over and booked it as fast as he could, ignoring the screaming pain in his foot as he went.

Blue might never be his favourite colour again, seeing how her skin and lips were that pale shade as he finally got to the train car. 

Dropping her next to the fire barrel he froze and made a horrible noise of pure frustration with the sudden realization that the matches and everything the two of you had to start a fire, had been left back at the pond. 

Looking around, frantic, he ripped into the plastic box that had been left there, praising whatever Gods there were for the lighters and fire accelerant in there, hands shaking as he threw everything into the barrel and nearly lit himself on fire to get it going as fast as he possibly could.

“C’mon baby, c’mon.” Dan touched her face slapping it gently and then not so gently trying to get a response. A tiny nose scrunch, a mumbled whine of something, enough to settle the panic in him just a little, but she was ice, barely breathing, her clothing almost frozen solid.

He babbled while stripping her things off, apologies and explanations, as if she could confirm the things he was thinking, wet clothing was bad right? This is okay right? You don’t mind using this sleeping bag I know it’s gross but we gotta right now. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I swear this is for you.

Please forgive me.

Please don’t die.

Dan watched enough movies to have some idea of the dangers of cold exposure, to have a small clue that she needed her wet clothes off and dry clothes on, that she needed something hot directly against her skin and the warmest thing there (other than throwing her directly into the fire and even he wasn’t that desperately stupid) was him.

Most of his clothing was wet too, from the snow and from her, the questionable sleeping bag that smelled of alcohol and sweat (but at least not piss, thank god for small favours) was the only dry thing there. Putting his t-shirt on her he wrapped himself against her ignoring how her skin burned against his with how cold she was. It was like hugging a snowbank, wrapping the both of them in the sleeping bag scooting as close to the fire as he could.

Was it the fearful pounding of his own heart making it harder to hear hers beat?

Was it that her breath was so cold he couldn’t feel it?

Or was he simply trying to warm a dead body?

Dan let out a choked sob, rocking her back and fourth trying to squeeze her closer to himself, to force his heat into her, blowing on her stiff fingers, trying to get her blue flesh back to a healthy living pink.

He’d never hated that cold color more.  
   
—  
   
“—Just a little farther”

My skin was on fire.

“C’mon baby-girl stay—”

There was an orange glow on the edge of the abyss.

“—God… If you’re listening. I can’t—”

Cold, cold, cold… Darkness and light, electric ants crawling over me, my skin was being peeled off, salted and finally lit ablaze.

I dreamed then.

I’d never escaped from the plane, my boiling flesh bubbling as I moaned and tried to wriggle away but unable to. This was hell, I was being punished for not helping enough people, for being selfish, I would feel their torture, I was dead, this was hell.

“I love you, please, I love y-“

The pain eased slowly, the blazing heat cooled into something gentler, softer. For the first time in what felt like forever, I felt safe.

—

If Dan could sweat he would have been dripping in it. The train car had taken a while to heat up but eventually it did, and it got to a good temperature especially as close to the barrel as they were.  
Still his own internal temperature was kept in check by the fact that he was still holding onto her, and she was still so cold but better, a little better now. No longer a pale, deathly blue colour but a soft, normal pink.  
Better enough Dan could get up, add more wood to the fire and the little rocks of what he thought was coal (or maybe he was just throwing rocks into the barrel, he had no real idea)

He hadn’t exactly been calculating when he’d started the fire, adding too much wood, too much accelerant, trying to make the blaze as big and quick as he could, not thinking to calculate for how long he would need it to burn for. Darkness had fallen and while on occasion he could shake a sleepy mumble from his companion, confirming that she was alive, she wouldn’t fully wake up.

Some of his things had dried enough to be put back on, The socks he’d been using for gloves went onto her feet. He was worried looking at them, the skin a gross yellowish-white, and swollen.  
/But at least not black, that’s good right?/ He’s blown hot breath over them, warming them with his hands before putting the socks over them, hoping that in the end she’d get to keep all the toes.  
Everything else was warm but still damp, but he threw on his jeans and jacket anyway needing any protection from the cold.

Standing at the door to the train car he hesitated.

The two of you needed wood to make it through the night.  
Wood that he’d already gathered in the backpack that he’d had to leave behind.  
It’d take maybe a half an hour to get there and back but, but, but…

What if the owners of the drugs came back and saw an unconscious near-naked girl rolled up in their sleeping bag?  
What if you rolled over and lit yourself on fire?  
What if the fire went out?  
What if you…

He felt like the world was pressing directly onto his lungs, a panic rising up making him check her pulse again, check that she was breathing, blow on her fingers to make them warmer. 

Pulse.  
Breath.  
Fingers. 

A rotation of excuses again, and again, to avoid leaving as the fire started to burn a little lower, low enough to notice the cool air, low enough to worry.

“Please be okay, please I just— I just need to go get that wood, we need it, please I need you to be okay, okay baby? I promise- I promise I won’t get mad at you for anything ever again, you just gotta stay here and get warm and be okay, okay? Please, please. please.” 

Scruffy, chapped lips pressed against her temple, holding her close his nose buried in her hair he breathed deep.

She smelled like lemons, like warmth, like life.

“Promise me you’ll be here when I get back.” He whispered giving her a final tight squeeze, and left, running despite the cold and the dark, moving as fast as he could to get back to where he’d dropped the backpack, cursing when he nearly walked into one of the logs on the track, looking around in the dark trying to find it. Cursing louder as he tripped over it, solidly stubbing his toe.

What was more pain?

He tripped again as he turned around, legs caught on the strap of another bag, the pack that she’d found and he’d peeled off of her once he’d dragged her back to the tracks to lighten the load and get her moving. It was frozen solid and basically empty but he picked it up, holding it to his chest, rushing back the way he came. 

When she was better she’d want it back.

She was going to need it.

Because she was going to make it.

Prizes in hand he raced back, his lungs burning from the cold and exertion, body on fire and shaking with how exhausted he was once he got back inside.

Dropping everything he immediately was back to her side, cold fingers touching her face, Breath? Light but there.  
Pulse? Hard to find with the pounding of his heart ringing through his whole body but there, soft and fluttering.  
Fingers? Burning hot compared to his, those yellow blisters forming but none of them were black, which was good enough for him.

A grateful kiss on her fingertips he turned back to the task at hand.

Pulling out the wood he’d gathered he put a fresh log into the fire, it was still hot, the rocks he’d thrown in seemed to be glowing bright and keeping things going, the wood was a little damp but he put in some paper to get the flames back up so the new wood caught.  
Too tired to eat, to tired to do anything, Dan was barely able to get his numbed fingers to unravel the second sleeping bag. Stripping himself back down to put his jacket on you as well he curled back up to her frosty skin, checking pulse, breathing, and fell into a half sleeping state of exhaustion with her fingers against his lips, praying.

“—God… If you’re listening. Please, please, I can’t—“

—

By morning he’d found that calm that she always had, and realized that she was right in how it wasn’t an actual calm, but more an emotional deadness where on the other side of that was a deep void of despair.  
But at least it came with a clarity of mind. 

The fire burned to embers and there was nothing around to burn any longer. She was still cold, still asleep, but alive.

Dan got up then, opening the plastic box that was in the train car as well, pushing past the drugs to gather up any other matches, lighters, extra accelerant, even the paper lining at the bottom of the bin to keep the meth crystals dry. There were a few boxes of snacks in there as well, granola bars, and kids fruit snacks. Things that were easy to consume when you were not functioning on all four cylinders. 

He took it all, stuffing everything of use into the two backpacks and leaving them by the entrance. 

Carefully he dressed her, talking the whole way through it. 

“Just helping you put on your pants darlin, nothing happened, you’re okay, it’s just cold outside and we gotta get home.”  
She was half there and half not, eyes fluttering open every so often, sometimes able to sit up and help, sometimes a dead weight in his arms while he got her bundled up. 

He chugged as much water as he could, his stomach in knots and no desire to eat, shaking his companion awake he got a few sips into her before she was out again. 

How much water did a person need in a day? What happened after being that cold? Was it like getting too hot? Did she need more hydration? Less?

Dan didn’t know but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to take everything back so, he left the water, and the bags, wrapping her up in everything before guiding her to the door, getting her on his back and heading back to their cabin as quick as he could. 

It was slow going, sometimes she’d wake up enough to hold on so he could move faster, then she’d go limp, her weight would sag to one side or another, and he’d have to hunch down, re-adjust, keep moving. 

A day long struggle that had him nearly in tears by the time he crawled back into the cabin with her.

He stumbled to the bed, falling onto it as she just slid off him with a weak sounding mewl of discomfort. 

Dan was pretty sure he passed out in that moment, when he came to not much had changed except the room was completely dark and all his muscles were locked tight. 

Shaking hands felt the form next to him, still warm, soft gentle breaths, still alive.

But he was freezing. She had the hat, the scarves, the gloves. Thankfully wrapped up and warm, while he had a thin layer of sweat in a dangerously cold room. 

He fell out of the bed, his legs too unstable to walk Dan crawled to the fireplace, feeling around blindly for the spare matches, the tinder already waiting for what they had been hoping would just be the next occupants but instead were them once more. 

Striking a match he had to squint at the light, now able to see what he was doing to get the fire started. Slowly stoking the flames until the room was bathed in a soft orange glow. The water jug they had left there had a layer of ice over it, but with a shake Dan was able to get a drink, shivering with how cold it was. 

Dragging the water with him he left it on the floor by the bed, finding it a monumental task to crawl up even that high. 

Grabbing the edge of the blankets he rolled himself up next to her, pulling her close so he could feel her breath tickle his neck.

“Please… Don’t leave me.”

—

It was hard.

Waking up the next day he hadn’t even moved an inch in the night, his body protested even at him breathing too deeply. He’d never worked out so much in his entire life as he did just trying to get back here.

But he was so thirsty, the water wasn’t that far, just below his feet on the floor.  
The floor that felt so far away as he struggled to move at all. 

He started to cry, biting his lip because it hurt so bad to just get that far.

Falling to the floor, his arms too tired to even catch him Dan laid there for a while making soft, pitiful noises while he gathered up his strength just to pull the water jug close to him, just to raise his head enough to slosh some into his mouth before he laid back down on the floor needing to rest a moment simply from that.

Taking a deep breath he could hear all the joints in his back and ribs pop, but he couldn’t stop just yet.

If he was thirsty, she would be too.

Getting to his knees was hard, but once he was there it wasn’t too bad getting the water onto the bed and then pulling himself up to his feet.

Looking down at her she was so still, Dan had to stare at her intently for what felt like far too long before he could see her body move with her breathing.

“Baby? Hey wake up lovely.” Squeezing her leg Dan tried to wake her up but was getting much the same response as he had the whole day before. A sigh, maybe a grunt, but nothing fully conscious. He worked on getting her boots off, getting her ‘awake’ enough to get a few sips of water in her, pull her into the bed properly, tucked in and safe while he carefully hobbled around the cabin. More wood on the fire, more water in pots to melt, a can of soup for himself with what watered down spoonfuls he could get her to take as well as she slipped in and out of being almost there.

It was still daylight when he crawled back into bed with her, too tired and sore to do much else, desperately needing the darkness of sleep.

—

He was confused when he awoke. It was just as light as when he’d fallen asleep, the only thing that told him time had passed at all was that the room was freezing, the fire long since burned to cold ashes. 

Had it been a day? Two? Dan was still hurting but it was better, only a new sensation of being lightheaded, his stomach rebelling at how long he’d left it empty he was so hungry he felt like a combination of wanting to vomit and being eaten from the inside out.

At least he was able to stand up, although he felt like jello.

Starting the fire and getting to the kitchen he set up the kettle and put in a bag of mint tea, needing to calm his guts before he tried to put anything substantial into them. 

He nearly toppled over at the ragged wet cough from the bed, rushing to her side to help her sit up while she choked on her own breath, eyes fluttering open briefly but shutting as she went limp again after whatever had been blocking her breathing came clear.

It was hard not to run back at every tiny cough or wheeze, nearly dropping the kettle to get to her side as fast as he could, make sure that even though she was struggling to breathe, that she kept doing it, finding it harder and harder to pull away each time. 

What if she got sick? They had no medicine, no doctors.

He looked forlornly at the few items laid out in the kitchen, they barely had enough food, enough for today, stretched out to tomorrow, but after that?

She’d left some supplies at the other cabin, in case someone else made it there but if no one came

/no one’s coming/

he’d need to get those supplies. Dan was gently kicking himself for leaving behind the backpacks. A full days food in each that they’d brought, plus at least a days worth of snacks the drug runners had left.

It was so far and he couldn’t…

“I’m gonna need to cut more wood.” He said, more to himself while sipping his tea, sitting next to her to try and get a few mouthfuls into her whenever he could shake her awake long enough. “I’ve gotta keep you warm… Sorry it’s gonna be dog-food stew again tonight.”

More wood to cut, more sips of soup, more worrisome coughing. 

Dan stood at the door, he’d already moved the entire wood pile inside but knew that wouldn’t be enough to last much longer. Even with how he hurt, he went into the forrest, dragging back twigs and branches, gathering everything he could possibly find closer to the cabin until his face was numb from the cold and the sun was falling behind the mountains.  
Placing his head against the door he couldn’t go in just yet.

It was hard keeping these thoughts at bay but the silence of the woods, Crows calling at him, Wolves or Coyote’s howling in the distance, each one bringing up visions of the dead bodies that were all around him, hidden in the snow, reminding him of the ticking clock counting down.

A part of him darkly hoping that maybe, maybe she’d coughed her last breath, maybe this time when he came inside she would be gone.

And then-

He was so tired.

If she was gone then… Then maybe he could rest too.

Guilt washed over him, making him thump his head against the door, the focus of a new sharper pain to keep those thoughts away, but the guilt just weighed on him, not helping his desire for the dark to come. 

It was a familiar feeling that he was terrified of falling back into, but was so strong.

No one was coming.  
She was going to die.  
He would be alone and he would…

He would…

“Dan?”

A soft call, a voice waiting for him.

A flash of hope he ran towards.

—

The curtains peeled back to a soft light as I rose from the depths of the dark once more.

Confused my eyes opened to a familiar room. 

Not home in my bed but somewhere else, some of the nightmare had been just that… Dreams.

But not this part.

Sitting up it took me a long moment to remember everything. 

The crash.  
The cabin.

There was a fire going, all the blankets and two sleeping bags were piled on me. I was very aware of my body in a whole new way. My joints felt so stiff, like I’d broken every one and they’d repaired overnight. 

My skin felt like it’d been scrubbed raw with a steel brush.

Now awake I could feel everything and it all hurt.

I struggled with how weak I felt, the weight of the blankets combined with how every movement hurt made it a struggle, but I needed to get up, needed to look at myself. Between the dreams and how I felt there was no way my skin wasn’t burned black, that the fire dream had not been true. 

The best I could get was pulling my arms out from under everything. My hands were not burnt, but instead puffy, blistered, a pale yellowish colour at points.

Dry and cracked yes, but not from being on fire.

I took a breath and choked on it, my chest rattling as I coughed, pain lancing through my entire body as I did.

Looking around I saw a bottle of water on the bedside table and it was a struggle to roll for it, but my throat was so dry, I needed it more than I had needed anything before.

Prize within my grasp I sipped slowly at the warm liquid, realizing only then how unbelievably hungry I was. 

I could get as far as getting my legs out of the bed and that was it, I felt like that little bit of movement was running a marathon leaving me shaking and exhausted. 

Looking at my legs I couldn’t remember changing into the clothing I was wearing, out of the jeans I last recalled putting on and in the soft fleecy sweatpants that I’d left at the cabin.

I could remember leaving them, walking the railway tracks, finding the crash site, the bodies, the tunnel…

That was where my memories started to fade.

No matter how hard I tried you couldn’t remember the walk back.

Closing my eyes I could remember the dreams more than the reality I was searching for.

The burning heat…

Had I burned myself somehow? 

My hands sort of looked like burns, knuckles swollen with angry, painful, blisters, but they looked different from how I imagined such burns would look. Had I accidentally lit myself on fire? Was that why my skin hurt so bad?

My hands looked that bad, gross and puss filled, nails a grey dusty colour, patches of skin bloody and scabbing, they were numb and sharply painful at the same time…

Especially my feet had that feeling, that sharp static sensation where you couldn’t entirely feel them but were very aware of the disturbing painful sensation. The rest of me just felt over sensitive and raw, like I was covered in a rash. Yet when I reached up, while my ears had painful bumps of the same blisters, my hair was intact.

I jumped, hearing a thump against the door followed by another heavy knock. 

Someone was outside.

I tried calling out but my voice caught, a thin rasp that turned into a rattling cough, thick and deep in my chest.

Where was Dan? Was that him?

Just the thought of him made my heart clench, I needed him, where was he? Did he need my help? What happened to him?

With a steady breath it took more effort than it should have just to call out his name, 

The door swung open and I was relieved to see it was Dan, his eyes as wild looking as his hair as he rushed forward, dropping to his knee’s, grabbing me roughly before breaking down.

He sobbed, heaving, ugly, edge of sanity crying, arms around my waist, head in my lap, holding onto me like a drowning man to a life-vest.

If I hadn’t been so weak I would have probably fought him for the sudden contact. I had no idea what was going on, he was cold and wet, his fingers were digging so hard into me I was certain I’d have new bruises from it later. 

But getting over the initial shock of his actions, the level of his distress was so great instead of trying to gently push him away I bent over him, pressing kisses into his hair, softly shushing him and rubbing his back, trying not to wetly cough right on him while he cried himself out.

I hissed at him in pain when he finally looked up, grabbing my face, I could feel one of the blisters on my ear pop at the rough treatment and it made my head ring with how much it hurt I could barely hear Dan as he chanted “You’re okay!” between forcing painful prickling kisses all over my face.

I grabbed his wrists, rasping out a desperate “Stop.” I might have been okay, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t in pain or that he wasn’t making it worse.

He partially stopped, pressing his forehead to mine while he tried to contain himself, still crying, rambling incoherant things, prompting me to get a little more insistent that he knock it off, confused and a little scared of his needy actions.

“What happened?” Voice cracked, sore and followed up by a cough I asked as he finally calmed down enough to let go of my face, even though his head just went back into my lap. It hurt less to have him there at least.

It still took him a moment to gather himself.  
“You fell through the ice.”

At his words I could vaguely recall thunder, a downward motion, the dark, but nothing after.

I looked at him now, and understood that manic desperation he had.

“What?”

“You- You were so cold. We made it back to that train car but I- And I tried to warm you up but god, you were so cold, you were so cold and I thought—” His voice cracked, more tears leaking out. “Carry- Carried you back and- you’re really awake now? You’re okay?”

I weren’t sure. In pain, tired, and weak.  
Alive at least.

“How long?”

“I dunno like, two days? You’d kinda wake up, but you were still cold and not really- God you’re okay, you’e really here?”

“Yeah I’m— I’m still here.”

Hurting.  
Scared.

But still here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The blisters on Readers hands are second degree frostbite (frostbite comes in 4 degrees much like burns do) she got cold enough that the top skin layer on her toes and heels of her feet and her fingers became damaged enough that it blistered so her joints hurt and her skin is 1st degree frostbitten (which is like a sunburn) 
> 
> SHE doesn't really know that so all she knows is LIFE IS PAIN.  
> DAN Doesn't know that so he's just like "idk gross but ok. Still alive, don't care"
> 
> And now YOU all know that so yay, don't fall in water in the wintertime kids. Is bad thing.


	9. The Hunger (Days 11 and 12)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited October 20, 2017
> 
> -Yes I know the quote is wrong, but who remembers quotes that precisely?

Dan had been insistent the night before that I take at least one of the painkillers and I couldn’t argue with him. He’d sat up with me and a steaming pot of water, lancing and then cleaning the larger blisters on my fingers and feet. Crying with me while I screamed, apologizing for each, barely flinching when I kicked or slapped at him in pain. He was so careful, delicately wrapping my fingers and toes in soft strips of his torn up t-shirt, making sure to spray and add antiseptic goop all over me so that I would heal and hopefully keep everything attached. 

It was not a fun night even though it also ended in the both of us getting high.

Dan smoked more than I could, putting himself to a level where he just vapidly stared at the roof, occasionally giggling or mumbling something silly before he was able to calm himself down enough to curl into my arms and fall asleep.

The next morning I awoke to Dan watching me sleep. A distant part of me might have at one time found that strange or creepy, but considering all that had happened, how his eyes got misty just seeing me wake up, I couldn’t hold it against him in the slightest. 

I would be doing the same thing if I’d almost lost him.

That thought chilled me, since in a way I had almost lost him. 

Moving forward, without breaking eye contact, I came nose to nose with him, looking into his eyes, watching for any sign of rejection and getting none as my lips touched his and I let my eyes close.

His lips were dry, catching on my own as we kissed, feather light and yet more intense than anything I’d ever felt before.

I shuddered when he pulled away, chasing his lips just a little but stopping, feeling my body ache, not just for him, but just as a general statement. My skin still felt raw and my bones ached, no matter how much I might have wanted him I was in no condition to push either of us any further.

“Thank you.” He whispered placing one final kiss to my forehead as he got up. 

He didn’t have to press me to stay in bed, I was still hurting enough that no matter what I felt like I needed to get done, I knew I wasn’t moving.

Puttering around he made some soup, still quiet, turning every so often to just look at me, his face relaxing every time like he still couldn’t quite believe I was there anymore. 

He sat with me on the edge of the bed while I ate, gently unwrapping my feet and re-applying creams, waiting until I was done to take the bowl from me, finishing what I hadn’t eaten before coming back to do the same for my hands.

“So… I’d like to go to the other cabin today, pick up that food that we left there.”  
I stupidly asked “Why?” But I could see why.

On the counter in the kitchen were only two cans of food, that I knew were probably both dog food considering thats what had been in the last mystery can.

“I can’t go all the way back to that train car.” I didn’t know if he meant that his foot wasn’t good enough for it, or if it was because he didn’t want to leave me for that long. “If no one comes today…”

He trailed off, not wanting to state what was obvious. 

We were running out of food.

“We should go out to those ice huts. Try to catch something.”  
I suggested, “We had hooks and stuff at the other cabin didn’t we? We can just bust the ice with the hatchet and try to catch something.”

“Fishing is a little more complicated than that.” Dan said getting up checking the fire and adding a little more wood to it, his voice was quiet, like he was already halfway to giving up.

“Well we should go try, I mean…” If Dan could get a fish, a couple of them even, we could have a nice full meal for once and have the energy to maybe make it in the other direction of the tracks.

Rescue was now a pipe dream I didn’t even want to think of any longer.

But that didn’t mean I was ready to give up.

“I’ll co—“ I had to cut myself off, a deep chest cough shaking my whole body making Dan cross the room, concern written all over his face. 

“I’ll come with you.” I wheezed out holding onto his shirt to stay upright.

“No.” Dan said directly, not that I was surprised. “You can barely walk and I don’t want you outside, not with how you’re coughing.”  
“Yeah but…”  
“No ‘yeah but’ you are staying right here, and you’re going to read this-“  
He got up handed me one of the books from the shelf at random.  
“-and get healthy and I’ll go out and catch us a fish like the MANLY MAN I AM” He flexed grinning at me making me giggle. “And we’ll eat it and get strong, and buff, and we’ll walk to town like a pair of burly mountain folk sustained on the wilderness like the motherfucking bad-asses we are!”

Reaching out to him he came back sitting on the edge of the bed so I could take his hand, pressing my lips to his rough knuckles, smiling at him, so glad he was there.  
“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely lovely, I’m going to bring you best fucking fish you’ve ever seen!”

—

He came back long after nightfall empty-handed looking tired.

As he stomped the snow off his boots at the door before taking them off he didn’t say anything. I felt nervous about it, keeping quiet while he went into the kitchen pulled the can of fruit, soup, and soda that I’d left at the other cabin from his pockets putting them next to our 2 remaining cans of mystery dog food.

He stood there, still quiet, just leaning on his hands against the counter looking at our supplies. I hadn’t cooked anything yet, barely able to get out of the bed and shuffle myself into a chair by the fire to keep the flamed going throughout the day, I also didn’t want to eat without him there because I could see how little we had.

“It took for fucking ever to just get through the fucking ice.” He said quietly making me feel jumpy at each cuss which came out sharper than everything else. “Three fucking hours of just chipping at it.”

He went quiet again, letting out a long sigh picking up one of the mystery tins and turning around.

His eye’s widened and he froze when he tossed the tin in the air to catch it, seeing me duck as though he was going to throw it at me.

I stared at him and he looked right back at me, neither of us saying anything for far too long.

“I’m fine.” I spat out quickly seeing his mouth move into the formation of a ‘why’ not really wanting to have that conversation in general.

Looking at the tin in his hand and back to me he approached, not agonizingly slow, just a smooth casual motion, relaxed while still cautious. “Sorry.” He whispered once he was closer, kneeling down at the fireplace to start up on making dinner. 

“It’s okay, it’s fine.” I sighed back, keeping my own issues to myself. After all what woman in the world wasn’t conditioned by warning or experience to be very nervous around an angry man?

I could only be glad that Dan wasn’t the type who did take his anger out on others.

Our moods were lifted a little as the mystery can, turned out this time to be spaghetti-O’s and not dog food. Dan added more water to it than it needed but it made it at least completely filled the empty voids in our bellies with something hot and more delicious than we’d been expecting.

“Can I come out with you tomorrow?” I asked after we’d eaten and Dan was helping me back into bed, trying to make myself sound more appealing with a softer voice, running my hand up his chest.

“No, you should stay here you’re still hurt.”  
Since being cute didn’t work I quickly fell into whiny.

“Please? I will go fucking insane if I just sit on my ass here for one more day. I read 50 shades of grey Dan. I READ THE WHOLE THING.”

“Yeah I head it was pretty ba-“ Dan started to say while he moved to put a few more logs on the fire before we went to sleep, but I interrupted him.

“Dan No. Dan. I READ ALL OF IT DAN.”  
“That bad?”

“You know how you popped the blisters on my feet and I asked you to cut off my legs rather than do that because it hurt so bad? Right now I’m on the fence about which one is more painful, the blisters hurt, but I will have to live with the knowledge of that book FOREVER.”  
Dan giggled shaking his head while he came back to the bed taking off his jacket and wriggling out of his pants so he would be comfortable through the night. 

“I’m very much against the idea of burning a book, but this? This at least would make excellent toilet paper, because it sure isn’t doing anything for the literary world.”

“Oh it can’t be that bad.” Dan laughed pulling me into his arms.

“Well let me come with you tomorrow and I’ll read it to you. Let you experience my suffering too.”

He snorted, but I got a sleepy “We’ll see.”

—

The next morning I felt bad.

My joints were still hurting and I felt dried out but I really didn’t want to stay indoors alone all day again. 

I knew Dan couldn’t stay with me, we needed the fish desperately, without it unless we hit a jackpot of food hidden away in someone’s luggage or rescue came within the next few days there was no way we would make it.

We were still quite far away from the desperation of eating each other or any of the other passengers, but Dan didn’t have a lot of meat on his bones to begin with, and we both were not getting nearly as many calories as the average person needed in a usual day, especially not for how active we were being forced to be, hauling wood, wading through snow, dealing with the cold. 

1 can of peaches split between two people wasn’t enough.

But for today’s breakfast that was all we had.

“Take me with you?” I asked once we’d finished. I could walk a bit better now, shuffling around slowly on my own, I felt like the little mermaid, each step like I was dancing on glass. “For laughs, for love, for the unknown.”

Dan looked like he was going to say no, but then his eyes widened.  
“Did you just quote the last unicorn at me?”  
“You know it?!” I gasped happily clapping my hands once because that action hurt more than expected. “See, now you have to take me with you.”  
“I wish you had chosen something else.” He sighed smiling since he was still quoting the movie himself.  
“Yeah, but you can’t give me what I really want.”

He dropped character then, winking at me and making a crude motion of adjusting himself, “Oh I think I could.”  
“Right. Never mind, you go, get out, I’m locking you out now.” I shuffled and started pushing him to the door. “Ruin my childhood- get out of my house.”

Laughing he accepted my ‘rough treatment’ begging forgiveness with little wiskery kisses to my cheeks, pulling me to the bed so he could check the wrappings on my fingers and feet before helping me get dressed, every layer he could fit on me until I felt like I was going to overheat, and then insisting I wrap one of the sleeping bags around me too.

“Is it too late to tell you I need to go pee now?” I asked as soon as we’d stepped out the door, I back-pedalled, giggling that I was kidding with the look he gave me.

Once we arrived Dan immediately lit a fire, making me feel a bit useless since he wouldn’t let me do anything except sit next to the stove while he busied himself, chipping off the thinner layer of ice that had formed over the hole overnight, running back to the cabin to make sure we had enough wood for the day, finally settling himself next to me, accepting a section of the sleeping bag to keep himself warm while he fished.

It wasn’t much better than being stuck back at the cabin, the small serving of fruit in sugary syrup wasn’t enough to keep us full for that long, and hunger made us a little less patient.

I’d brought the fishing magazine I’d found from the cabin with me, reading aloud to make all the recommendations from in there, as well as any other useless bits of advice that popped into my head.  
“Why don’t you try wiggling it? Are you using any bait? Is the hook on right?”

Dan’s answers were getting just as snappy as time passed. He went from telling me little stories, and light banter to just tense one word responses, shifting away so he wasn’t even touching me anymore as we sat together.

I got quiet, he got quiet, the tension just got worse.

Tired, cold, hungry, we out and out started fighting.

“Look if you think you can do better!” He snapped at me for yawning.  
“Fuck off, I didn’t say shit. You’re the one who said you’ve fished before!”  
“Yeah in a boat, with a rod, when I was a kid, not like this!”  
“Well I’m just saying what the magazine is saying it’s not like I’m an expert either.”  
“Well it sure sounds like you’re trying to be one for someone who doesn’t know jack shit!”

I jerked away from him and took a deep breath, biting my tongue. Rolling out from under the blanket, I took to busying myself with putting another log in the fire, not letting him see me blinking back tears. 

Everything hurt and I was so tired of all of this, my thoughts swirling darkly, angrily wishing briefly that you hadn’t tried to go to the wedding, hadn’t survived the crash, had just drowned in the lake.

Dan sighed.

“Fuck, I’m sorry.”  
I couldn’t answer, my throat was still too tight.  
“I’m being a sack of shit and I’m really sorry.”

It took me a moment and a wet sniffle. “It’s ok, I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t be nagging at you, I know you’re trying your best.”

“We’re hangry huh?”  
“Hm?” I looked up at him now, having rubbed the unshed tears from my eyes, moving closer to him again.

“When you’re so hungry you get angry, hungry-angry, Hangry” Dan explained getting a small giggle from me, we certainly were hungry and that was making us extra irritable.

“Lovely, I’m sorry. I’m glad you’re out here with me, I’m so fucking glad you’re here at all, I’m just- There’s no excuse, I mean my stomach is trying to eat me alive and I’m nothing but cramps, so I’m just super bitchy about everything, but I don’t wanna be- I really don’t wanna be an asshole to you.”  
“It’s okay, I understand.” I went back to him then, kneeling down to hug his back. “We just gotta, keep reminding ourselves that it’s stress and the-“

I was cut off by Dan suddenly letting out a yelp, elbowing me while jerking at the line which he almost lost as it gave a sharp tug in his hands.

Cursing I fell back giving him space to jump up, yanking a fish that was probably just as startled as the two of us up from the hole, while both of us screamed in some combination of fear and delight.

“Holy shit! I got one! I GOT ONE!!”  
“OH MY GOD DAN YOU GOT ONE!!” 

We both yelled jumping up and down while the fish flopped around on the floor between us, I could only imagine it was judgementally unimpressed considering it was only the size of my palm, not exactly the catch of the day.

“Now what?” Dan looked at me once we’d calmed down, like I knew what to do.

“Now… Now you kill it.”

Dan looked down at the flopping fish and held his breath.  
“You do it.”

“What? Why do I have to kill it?”  
“I… I can’t! I’ve never killed anything before.”  
“I’ve never killed anything before either!”

We both looked at it, it stared back, mouth moving, begging to be put back into the water.

“Please?” He begged, “I love you?”  
Dan’s voice was so pitiful I groaned unfortunately a sucker for that sad puppy look.  
But it wasn’t like I could really say anything about his refusal to kill, I was in the same squeemish boat as him.

Grabbing a large stick from the wood pile I closed my eyes and with a mighty squeak I smacked the fish as hard as I could, whacking at it with a girlish scream a few more times until it stopped moving leaving the both of us in stunned silence now that I’d successfully made the first kill.

Breathing heavy I looked down at the battered creature and then back to Dan who had taken a healthy step back from me.  
“Now what?” I asked now as though Dan knew.

“Uh… I guess we gut it?”  
Looking at him, the fish, and then back to him I turned back to the wood pile and handed Dan the hatchet from off the ground.

“What? You want ME to do it?!?”  
“I killed it!”  
“I caught it!”  
“SO you should gut it!”  
“No you do it!”  
“I don’t even LIKE fish!”

Dan gave a scandalized gasp, thankfully breaking the tension of what could have turned into another fight, instead making us both giggle. 

We were such city kids and didn’t want to really get our hands dirty with the messy business of actually preparing our own food. 

Dan broke first, taking the hatchet and getting down, hovering over the fish, not sure where to begin.

“Chop off the head?”  
“I KNOW!” He snapped back at me. “I just… Don’t wanna touch it.”

I bit my tongue to hold back the ‘suck it up buttercup’ since it would be hypocritical of me to say.

I didn’t want to touch it either.

Dan made a whimpering noise as he finally placed his hand on the fish, cold and wet and slimy, shuddering and babbled to himself as he steadied the hatchet.

“It’s just a big piece of sushi, you just gotta prepare it, you’ve seen dudes do this all the time, it’s sushi, delicious sushi that’s still staring at you.” He mumbled.

Calming breaths he steadied his hand on the fish ready to finally cut into it before suddenly screaming, and making me scream as well, as it started flopping again. 

My blows had only stunned it and it was still QUITE alive.

With a high pitched screech and a flailing strike Dan hit the fish taking off the head and burying the hatchet deep into the wood underneath, silence finally taking over as we both stood there in stunned silence, the fish body twitching it’s last, the head looking at us accusingly, mouth still moving a few more times, bleeding over the floor.

I couldn’t say who made the break for the door first, Dan was closer so if asked I’d say him, but both of us leapt outside of the hut, stunned by the violence of our actions, maybe a little mutually terrified of the fish’s ghost seeking its revenge, standing out there until I caught Dan’s eye and we burst out laughing.  
It was one that was mostly amused, but still on the edge of being hysterical.

“It’s a fish.”  
“I know.”  
“It’s just a fucking fish!”  
“You’re out here too darlin’ don’t throw stones in your glass house.”  
“Oh I’m not, we are BOTH the biggest weenies on the damn planet.”  
“But I caught a fish.”  
“You did.”  
“I AM A MIGHTY HUNTER, CATCHER OF FISH!”  
“A fish, singular.”  
“ALL THE FISH BOW BEFORE ME!”  
“Oh mighty hunter we bow~” I put my hands up bowing before him chanting “We are not worthy, we are not worthy!”

All the fish did indeed bow before him. 

While gutting it fully was an equal nightmare that required us to take the fish back to the cabin to do, needing the kitchen tools there to actually do anything, there was enough daylight left for us to go back to the fishing hut and try again. This time tossing the unwanted fish guts down into the lake spurring a feeding frenzy allowing Dan to pull up two more even bigger fish, not huge, but each one at least the size of his hands.

That night picking out bones and scales, being able to eat our fill of a simple grilled fish?

Nothing had ever tasted better in our lives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this'll be the last chapter for a while since I haven't played the game past this point. Shoutout to DefLeppardFan13 who gave me the inspiration for the last part of this (dan screaming like a small child over a fish)
> 
> Keep on loving guys.
> 
> You'll get your fish too.


	10. The Give (Day 13 and 14)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited October 20, 2017  
> -Partially new chapter, taking scenes from next chapter and elongating them.

The next morning we woke up probably feeling better than we had since the crash. 

Having eaten our fill of fresh caught fish that gnawing hunger creeping up on us had been pushed aside completely, at least for the night, giving us both a deep rest and finally providing our bodies with some of the nutrition they really needed to help us mend.

Still, a few fish wasn’t enough to deal with the real problem.

“No one’s coming to get us.” I said bluntly without any sort of pre-amble picking at the leftover fish we were having for breakfast.

Dan looked at me, his mouth opening like he wanted to argue, but it shut and he looked away. We knew that no one was coming, too much time had passed, if anyone had been searching with any level of urgency before, they would have slowed to a clean-up crawl by now, most likely not trying very hard any longer, not to finish their task until long after the spring had thawed out the mountainside. 

“We should try the tracks again, head south.”  
“Which way were we going before?”  
“North-ish. Sun rises in the east and sets in the west right? So-“ I turned in my chair to face the direction I knew the sun was coming up at. “Left, North, Right, South.”

The tracks didn’t run exactly, but we had chosen a generally more Northern direction the first time. 

“Why?”  
“Winter lasts until March, sometimes May in Canada depending on where you are. January and February are going to be the coldest so we’ve still got maybe a few weeks before the weather well and truly goes to shit.”  
“This isn’t shitty weather?”  
“No, this has actually been kind of pleasant for Canada.”  
“You’re shitting me.”  
“I really wish I was.”

Dan sat back with a curse.

“We should at least go to that crash site by the tunnel, go through all the luggage we can find there, maybe there will be some food or equipment, get our backpacks back, we’ve got a days worth of food in there still.”  
“And there was some snack stuff the drug dealers left too.”  
“There was?”  
“Yeah I uh, after- Well I went through their stash and found some snacks. But yeah we need to go get those bags.”  
“At this point I don’t even care if the dealers are there, if they have a way to their stash they gotta have a way out. I just-“  
My voice cracked, I was trying to make a joke but it was hitting too hard.

I really did just want to go home.

“I know.” Dan reached across the table taking my hand.

“Okay.” After a few beats of silence he came to his decision, not really much of a choice since we either found our way out of here, or most likely, slowly starved to death. “Okay, lets- How about you try doing the fishing thing today, and I’ll head back to the train car, get those bags at least.”  
“I can come with you.” I hated how desperate my voice sounded but the thought of being apart scared me.

Dan squeezed my hand, bringing it up to his lips.  
“No, if we don’t get any fish today then we’ll have to eat all the supplies we have in our bags. If I go and you fish then at least one of us will bring home something to eat.”

I looked at the table, I didn’t want him to go, but he was right. We needed to work as a team if we were going to get out of here.

“Fine, just don’t be sad if my fish are all bigger than yours.”

—

Dan was right.

Fishing was hard.

Jerk the line too fast and you’d scare the fish away, jerk too slow and you’d lose your bait, I lost a line to the water as the first fish I hooked pulled it out of my hands. Luckily we had other hooks and more line but it’s not like we had so many that I could be wasteful with them. 

The first fish I pulled out of the water escaped and smartly flopped right back in once I’d gotten the hook out of its mouth.

I got better after that, pulling up two small ones, each barely the span of my own hand, but it was boring work and I was hungry and sleepy as the day went on.

It was hard, trying not to worry about Dan either. He was walking better but still had the limp, his foot wasn’t healed and was most likely not going to heal properly. If something happened to him, he wouldn’t be in a position to run away very fast.

And I would never know.

As the sky started to turn pink I pulled up an absolute beauty of a fish. The initial jerk almost pulled me into the hole and it was a struggle to drag the thing out.

It was probably the length of my forearm, from wrist to elbow, at least around 3kg.

Absolutely bigger than anything Dan had caught.

Knowing my limit I wrapped up the line and beat out what was left of the fire carrying my bounty back to the cabin.

Even with being busy, gutting and preparing the fish, my worries grew as the sky became darker and Dan was still not back yet. 

I didn’t want to eat without him, it was unfair and I was too worked up, my stomach a knot with no concern for food. But sitting and waiting would drive me even more mad, so I cleaned. Making the bed, folding up our clothes, emptying out the pockets of things…

Going through Dan’s jeans, the ones with the largest holes in the knees that his sewing job was no longer able to hold together and he’d now finally abandoned I was surprised to find something still in them.

A little pack of what looked like blue sugar…

A new worry dug into me.

I didn’t feel angry. 

Just… sad.

He didn’t seem like a meth head, I knew he used to do a lot of pot back in the day, but he had been avoiding what was left of our mutual stash, sometimes old bad habits came back but hard drugs wasn’t one of them was it?

He’d gone back alone…  
Had he run into someone? Or just facing old demons?

What if-/

It was still a while until he returned, fully dark I was laying in front of the fireplace half asleep. 

I tended to deal with stress by trying to be unconscious.

“Dan?” 

“Hey Baby~” He sighed smiling at me, dropping the backpacks and kicking off his boots so he could kneel next to me, scooping me up off the floor making me squirm and cry out at how cold he was. “Mmm I’m sorry I’m so late I missed you.”

My face flushed red with the affection, I’d missed him all day too but I was a prickly thing who would rarely admit something like that. 

Squeezing him back briefly before pushing him away I felt like I needed to rip the bandaid off my main concern.

“Why do you have meth in your jeans pocket?”

The smile on his face froze while a play of emotions flashed over on his face; confusion, remembering, fear, all ending in him looking away in shame.

“Do- Do you have a problem? If you’re using it-“  
“No” He stopped me quickly, settling down next to me on the ground. “I never used any, I’ve never used meth before, It- I- um…” 

Looking away scratched at the back of his head, pulling off the toque to tug at his own hair.

“After you were sick I was worried you might— Y’know, so I- I took it because I was thinking- Like it really doesn’t matter now so, you can just throw it out.”

“You were thinking about…” I looked at him, his eyes flicking to meet mine and knowing what he wanted to do had I died. 

This was not some romantic gesture like people made up in novels, just one of fear and loneliness.  
He nodded, looking away again.

“We’re okay now, right?” I knew exactly how he felt, after all I was in the same boat as him, we were both on a razor edge out here, without him I knew I would have fallen over into that void long ago.

He nodded softly murmuring “yeah, we’re good now.” letting me pull him closer to wrap around his lanky form to give him a chaste peck on his fuzzy cheek.

Dark thoughts were thrown out into the night, lost in the snow.

-

Dan had taken the time to stop at the crash site and start going through what he could find there, covering as much ground as he could while there was light. 

He hadn’t found much unfortunately. The day worth of food already in our packs, maybe a full meal worth of snacks hidden away by the drug dealers, but it wasn’t like people on vacation packed their bags full of food when they travelled. 

Dan had found a few boxes of fancy airport chocolates, some miniature souvenir maple syrups, enough calories in them to sustain a person but nothing solid enough to call it a meal.

“Lets wait one more day.” He insisted. “I’ll go back to the crash, see if I can find anything else.”

The longer we waited the harder it would be for us to go, but if we left anything behind…

“Okay, one more day.”

So we took the extra day, as soon as the sun was up I was back on fishing duty and Dan hiked back to the crash site once more. Thankfully he came back after the sun had reached it’s peak and was just heading back down. I’d caught a fair sized fish, probably enough for a single meal split between the two of us, but after hours of fishing only getting that much I knew that we had to find something better than this or we would never make it. 

Dan was in a pretty good mood when he came to the hut to get me however.  
“I got us something special for dinner~” He sang at me coming into the hut.  
“Is it food?”  
“Well… Yes, kinda.”

I was never good with waiting for surprises, my two modes were ‘Don’t tell me about it/I forgot completely’ and ‘I NEED IT NOW’

And since it wasn’t like he could stop me…

“I’m gonna go see what it is.”  
“What! No!” 

I pulled up my line and pushed it into his hands, pulling him down to get a quick kiss while I left singing “I’m gonna go find out~”  
“Fine go! Just save some for me!”

“No Promises!” I yelled back at him scampering back to the cabin with my fish.

I needed to head back anyway, the night before I had cooked up all the fish I’d caught, wrapped it up in bits of paper that we had and then left it outside to freeze. I wanted to try my hand at maybe smoking them today, but I had a feeling like we didn’t have the time nor equipment for it, but still I wanted to make sure we were packed and prepared for tomorrow so we could get up and just go as soon as the sun was up.

Getting into the cabin I saw sitting in the middle of the table the present Dan had found for us.

A bottle of Canadian ice wine.

I wasn’t much of a wine drinker, or a drinker in general, but I knew that Ice Wine tended to be a more expensive type of vintage and considering this one had been kept safe wrapped with careful bubble wrap set inside a wooden case, it was probably at least a $100 bottle.

Any other time I would have felt like that was too much, too expensive a gift. 

Now I was just floored, of all the things to survive such a crash it was Dan, me

And this.

-

“Holy SHIT something smells fucking GOOD!”

It was almost dark by the time Dan came back in, he looked tired and cold from being outside all day and only had a small fish to show for all the efforts of being out there, so I was glad that my kitchen experimentation at least smelled like it was worth it.

“I hope it tastes as good as it smells cus if it doesn’t well, fuck you eat it anyway.”  
“One, I’m sure it’s delicious, two, I’m hungry enough to eat a pine cone so I wouldn’t care but, three, I’d tell you it was great anyway because I am a gentleman.”

I grinned and gestured to the table where for the first time since we’d been here I actually set it like normal civilized people did when dining, even going so far as to place the oil lamp in the middle for lack of a candle. 

“Well Monsieur~” I put on my best fake French accent. “Sit yourself down and prepare to be-“  
“Oh no”  
“Our~”  
He started giggling.  
“Guest! Be our guest, put our table to ze test~ Something something I don’t know the words but figure out the rest~”

He laughed while I helped him take off his jacked still trying to sing along but mostly making up words to the general tune and not doing very well at it. 

It was fish, cooked with salt and a little of the maple syrup to give it a crisp sweet glaze that paired well with the sweeter wine.

It was good, maybe the spice of hunger helped but it was good even if I were serving this normally to him I’d be proud of it. One of the best things we’d eaten since the crash, maybe even for a few months before the crash since I’d gotten lazy with work and cooking had fallen to the back burner.

“I can actually cook you know.” I mentioned as he moaned over how good it was. “Fish isn’t really my forte, I don’t hate it but I don’t really like it.”  
“Aw, I love fish.”  
“Egh, if I was really trying to impress you I’d make you lasagna with homemade noodles, and my mama’s tomato sauce. With garlic toast, roasted vegetables, maybe a greek salad with lots of feta cheese and olives. Fuck I miss olives.”  
“Ahh an Italian woman after my heart~” Dan teased me. “I’m all about that feta cheese but I don’t eat red meat anymore, upsets my stomach.” 

I stuck out my lip giving him a little ‘aw’  
“Well I could make it with ground chicken too I guess? Chicken parmesan! With gnocchi.”  
“Mmm fuck yeah.” He took a big bite of the fish getting hungrier talking about different food. “But really, this is good. I have been a chronic ball of pain lately with all the canned stuff, this is perfect.”  
“Well cheers to that then.”  
“Salut~”

We clinked our tin cups with fancy wine together and took a sip grinning like idiots.

“So did you find the present I got for you?”  
I cocked my head to the side with confusion, we were drinking the wine.

“That wasn’t actually it. I mean it kind of was, but also-“ He got up and went to the bed where he’d left on my pillow a new novel, one that was maybe perfect for today.

Hogfather by Terry Pratchett.

“Merry Christmas, or Hogsmas, or whatever.”  
“I… Is it Christmas??” I’d been somewhat trying to keep track of the days, I felt like maybe we’d overshot though.

“Probably not, I think it’s still Chanukah so it counts for me!

“I…” I actually started getting misty eyed taking the book from him and standing up so I could come around the table and pull him down for a hug. “Thank you.”

“Hey it’s okay, I mean it’s nothing really special.” Dan tried to brush it off, hugging me back firmly but pulling back just as fast to brush the tears off my face. 

“No, it’s- Tonights been a really good night. This is the nicest thing someone’s gotten me in a long time so just-“ 

Pulling at his shirt and standing on my toes I connected my mouth to his, wrapping my arms around the back of his neck as he held me flush against him.

The smallest lick of my tongue against his upper lip was all he needed to open his mouth deepening the kiss, he tasted like wine and salt.

He tasted like being alive.

I kept my eyes on his, pulling back and guiding him to the bed, pushing him down and crawling after him to straddle his lap as he moved to the headboard watching me with a shy smile.

“Your fingers are cold.” I giggled as he pushed up my shirt. “Fuck your mouth is so hot.”

Moaning he’d pulled down the cup of my bra to latch onto my nipple, teasing one side with his cold hands, igniting the other with his tongue and teeth.

Cupping him through his jeans I ground down getting him to let go with a shuddering sigh, nuzzling into my neck, tickling me with his beard. 

“Please, Danny please, I want you.”  
“Fuck Baby-girl.” 

His voice was a low growl, rolling me onto my back so he could strip me down, biting and teasing, alternating between hot and cold until his fingers were just as warm as his mouth, both working between my legs while I gripped onto his hair begging him to never stop.

Even after licking me clean of my pleasure he didn’t stop, slowly building me back up once more, making his way back up to my lips, laying next to me while he finally let me touch him. 

My hands were still a little too rough, covered in bandaids, one hand in me and one on himself I pressed myself against him, kissing him with abandon, clenching around his fingers one last time while he followed with a moan adding a splash of heat over my stomach. 

“I love you.”

We whispered into the dark, sharing the taste of life between our desperate lips.


	11. The Wolves (Day 15, Dawn of Day 16)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited October 21 2017  
> -Major timeline changes, combined a few chapters.

Day 15

I woke up far too early the next day, long before the sun came up, just as the first chill entered the room as the fire turned over to embers. 

In part because I was still nude under the blankets which made me a little more aware of the temperature around me, but mostly because I was anxious. 

Today we would leave.

I got up, putting on the nearest thing which was the shirt Dan had been wearing the day before. It smelled like him, which in these conditions was not exactly a pleasant thing, but considering how hard it was to get a proper wash in, it wasn’t exactly the worst thing either. If after two weeks of this type of close contact we weren’t used to some of the gross things that human bodies did we probably would have killed each other by now.

We were basically ready to go, by firelight I cleaned up, something I felt like I needed to do for the owner of this cabin, pulling a blank page from the back of a novel, leaving a note of thanks to the owner, leaving a second note detailing where we were going in case we were never made it and finally rescuers came.

I was being quiet, but Dan got up not long after me, coming up behind me at the table and leaning down to put his chin on my shoulder.

“Today?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Are you sure?”

Was I?  
I wasn’t exactly a calorie counting kind of person, I dieted in the past, sometimes smartly and sometimes doing the stupid crash diet thing. So I had a rough estimate, if we ate even just 1500 calories per day we had food for 4 days. And that wasn’t enough considering the work we would have to put in to live past those 4 days, cutting wood every day to keep the fire going, fishing every day in hope of extending that out just a little longer.   
It would be a slow painful death.

Walking the track was a gamble, a big one. Maybe we’d run into the rescue team, maybe we’d make it to another town, at the very least we’d fall asleep somewhere outside and never wake up.

I heard freezing to death was one of the more pleasant ways to go.

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

Heading back to the train tracks this time we went to the right in hopes that something would be there.   
As you approached the tracks Dan grabbed my arm making me stop, looking around like he heard something.

“Wha-“  
“Shh!”

Pointing ahead over the hill that the tracks were on a huge stag with a full set of antlers came up the crest. Dan had heard it softly crunching through the snow, and since he was taller saw it coming over the ridge before I had.

We both stood there watching it as it looked down upon us regally, like the king of all it suveyd it sucked in a deep breath letting out a huff of breath that swirled through the air.   
Dan softly cussing a gentle “fuck” of awe at the majestic creature, moving closer to me, the both of us scared to move.

It looked right at us, considering us both with it’s judgemental eye. and then disregarded our puny presence, leisurely making it’s way back from where it came, disappearing down the other side of the hill and into the tree-line.

“Did- Did you see that too?” I whispered still wonderstruck by the moment.   
“Yeah.”  
“Holy fucking shit.”  
“You’re fucking telling me.” Dan replied louder, shaking his head to clear it of that send of wonderment that was honestly making me feel small and strange. Taking my hand Dan grinned at me, giving it a squeeze, the smile reaching his eyes for the first time in a while.

I grinned back, feeling a spark in my chest, eager to be on our way.

A sign of things to come?

I could only hope.

—

The day was progressively getting foggier as we walked, the added humidity crusted a layer of frost on our clothing and around Dan’s beard but we were moving enough to keep warm so it didn’t really matter. We didn’t need to see that far ahead of ourselves since we were following tracks and all that was to the sides of them were tree’s, tree’s and oh? More tree’s.

At some point we’d let go of each other’s hands from when we were first walking, taking our time, balancing on the tracks as we walked, in no particular rush. We’d started out early enough in the day that we had a good 8 hours of walking ahead of us, our packs were not light but not terribly heavy between the two of us. I felt like we were making good time but it was hard to tell since everything sort of looked the same. 

Taking Dan’s hand again we continued moving through the fog. I wasn’t really that big on PDA, granted, while we were outside this wasn’t exactly public unless you counted the crows. (And they were pretty judgemental)  
But I was feeling a warmth from having him there with me, which helped keep at bay the creeping anxiety from the fog and not being able to see that far ahead. The cries of those critical crows faded as we went, soft wind and creaking tree’s, the “Kik-ka-Riririri” of winter birds still calling calming my nerves.

“Up ahead.” Dan commented making me squint into the fog seeing some kind of structure coming up.

As we got closer I saw it was just more huge logs, like the ones from the crash site where the train had been knocked off the tracks where the the tunnel had collapsed from days before. Unlike there these ones were all stacked neatly to the side, tied up, waiting to be loaded on the next train. We wandered through the stacks, looking for anything useful, for any sign of people that had been here recently.

We didn’t exactly need to be expert trackers to know there were no people that had come through. The snow was thick and pristine, free of all tracks that could have been human. Even the tracks themselves between the logs where they were blocked from the wind were heavy with fallen snow.  
It made sense, if one train going down this track had gone off the rails then the next one would be warned not to come until the tracks were confirmed clear, but why not send another train from this direction to help repair the tracks?

We’d been avoiding talking about this, why no one was coming, I’d thought about it though. My mind was a little over-imaginative and immediately jumped to Zombies but the longer we were out here, the more I saw things like this, the more I wondered if I wasn’t wrong.

“I gotta piss.” Dan stated bluntly moving to take off his gloves so he could.  
“Dude!” I know we’d gotten comfortable with one another but I still didn’t really want to see him pee.

He rolled his eyes at me hobbling off behind one of the log piles out of my sight. 

Wandering away while Dan did his business, I spotted a flash of yellow near the trees. Moving closer I could see it was a sign warning drivers of incoming large trucks.

Kicking at the snow to clear the ground you could see it wasn’t a paved road but a gravel one, a small sign of civilization, but it lead into the woods. What would be out there? A town connected to the train tracks?

“What’cha doin?” Dan called at me moving closer.

“There’s a road here!”  
“What?!” Now he was moving faster. “Lets go then!”  
“I dunno…”

“What’s the problem?” Now Dan was next to me, breathing a little hard from slogging through the deeper snow.

“It’s just, well, it’s just a gravel road, and look at it, it’s totally snowed over, no one’s been here since winter started. It probably just goes to the logging camp.”

Dan sighed a dejected “Oh” making me wish I’d never come over here, I hated crushing that spark in him but it would have been a waste of time.

“Well, I mean it’s up to you.”

He looked down the road, tree’s cleared deep into the woods with no end in sight, biting his lip in thought.  
“Nah, you’re right. Lets keep walking the track, if we don’t find anything then we can come back.”  
It was a weird thing to say, like ‘oh don’t worry if we don’t get rescued at least we can have a side adventure of also, not getting rescued!’

Adjusting my bag I took his hand again giving it a squeeze and giving him a smile, it was hard to stay hopeful but we kept moving, not speaking much but not really needing to.   
We were used to quiet periods between us and really what else could we say? ‘Quite the fog eh?, bit of a frosty one t’day?’ small talk was a waste of warm breath and we were getting cold.

A breeze picked up the fog, clearing it away as we came across a bridge stopping for a moment to take in the view, we weren’t able to see that far but I pointed over “I think this river is probably the one that connects up to our lake.”  
“Damn.”  
“Yeah we’ve gotten pretty far already.”  
“No, Damn.”  
“What?”  
“Damn.” Dan tugged my arm making me turn around, he wasn’t looking over the river where I was, pointing behind me he directed my attention to where the fog lifted more, showing a dam blocking up the river.

“Oh DAM!”

I’m smart.

“Like… Even if it’s off season there’s gotta be someone there right?” Dan’s voice lifted, getting hopeful again.  
“Maybe?” I genuinely didn’t know the working schedule of dams. Did people always work in them? They were important so there was the possibility. “There’s gotta at least be a phone.”

“Can we be excited?”  
“Hesitantly.” I warned before we both took off hurrying across the bridge towards the structure. 

Once we got closer it was easy to see that there was fortunately a door facing us. Since the rest of the structure was built into the mountain, and while the track cut into it, we didn’t know if it would loop around back to the dam, so for the time being this was the only entry.

I tried the handle not actually expecting it to open.   
“The doors… Unlocked.” 

“It’s Canada?” Dan offered parroting back what I’d said to him what felt like ages ago.

“Yeah, we’re trusting, not stupid. A place like this…“ Opening the door confirmed my suspicion and put out what little hope I had. “It’s Abandoned.”

It was clear the moment I opened the door the place hadn’t seen people for quite some time. The reception area was cleared except for an empty shelf and some unused cardboard boxes leaning up against the wall.   
“Shall we?” I asked holding the door open to usher Dan inside.

He sighed but went in, at least it was warmer in here than outside, no wind and no snow.  
“Lets eat and look aro-“  
“Why are these doors like this?” Dan inturupted me having wandered in further and looking at the second set of doors leading deeper into the facility. 

They had been busted clear off their hinges.

There was only the one window in the reception so I couldn’t see the damage or any further into the dark beyond them. 

“Gimmie the lamp.” 

Dan and I had switched places, Dan choosing to move away from the broken doors, and I chose to go closer. Holding out my hand and waving at him to come closer and give me the kerosine lamp from the cabin that we brought with us.

“I dunno, maybe we should just go.”  
“Don’t be a baby, I wanna see what’s in here.”

Dan pulled off his bag, doing as I asked, lighting and bringing the lamp over, holding it for us, hovering close to me while we went deeper into the facility. 

In the next room lockers lined the walls, torn up cardboard boxes on the ground alongside long abandoned equipment. A low creaking groan made Dan jump and scream, grabbing my arm with an insistent “Let’s go!!!”

He scared me more than the noise did and I rolled my eyes at him.  
“What you’re not scared of ghoooossts are you?” 

“Yes, Yes I really fucking am.”

“Oh… Well… You can stay by the door if you want, I’ll be right back.”  
“NOoooo! That’s what people always say RIGHT BEFORE THEY DIE IN PLACES LIKE THIS!”  
“Oh for fucks sake.”

I ignored him, moving to the lockers, going through them, not finding much, some photo’s, papers, Dan right at my elbow mumbling “We shouldn't be here" 

I was trying to hurry but it was important for us not to leave any stone unturned and I was glad we didn’t   
“Hey look, someone left their boots. And they’re 14’s! You should try them!”  
“Yeah, just take em, once we leave, not now, c’mon lets go already!”  
“Dan seriously? This place isn’t haunted.”  
“But the doors…”

I kept moving into the next room, it was mostly office space, shelving and some old looking computer systems that didn’t look like they were running any longer. Poking through the desks there was paperwork left there, books, technical manuals for the facility. Useful tinder, but nothing worth the weight of carry it.

“Baby-girl, no seriously, Are these claw marks? Please baby please can we go?”  
He’s nearly in tears when I finally come back to see what’s got him in a panic. Those DO look like claw marks, not that I know much about animals but I don’t think it’s a bear.  
“Both of these doors, and those ones over there are huge. Please?”

“Just… Just this and then we go.” I opened the first aid kit on the wall, finally hitting a jackpot, pulling out some bandages, and some cream which would also be good for my blisters and dried skin. 

No pain killers which was what we were really out of and mutually craving but a place like this it didn’t surprise me that it didn’t have any. Businesses often couldn’t give out any kind of medication.

“Oh well, that’s a good find.” Dan had to admit, turning around so I could put it into his bag not wanting to sling mine off. It was hard getting them on and off with all the puffy layers under us.

“See it wasn’t so bad, are you sure you don’t want to go through the whole place? The doors were probably knocked off by some ki-“ 

A low snarling sound echoed from somewhere in the building cutting off my thoughts. Dan backed into me, covering his mouth to not scream but a little yowling whine of fear still escaping him. 

“Ok, yeah, lets go.” I could admit when I was wrong.

Slipping out of the office we could feel the echo’s of the noise we heard coming from the final door that we didn’t go into, dark and foreboding we could sense something in the dark.  
“Dan…” I whispered as we both kept our eyes on the dark skuttling across the room. “Are those shell casings?”

Dan barely got out an “Um” before a growl rippled out from the shadows and eyes, reflected in the light of the lantern, shone low. 

Dan grabbed my arm basically throwing me into the other room closest to the exit as the biggest wolf I’d ever seen came out from the darkness, low to the ground and snarling, ready to strike.

It tensed, jumping just as Dan turned back to it after shoving me away. I couldn’t even tell who was screaming at that point, our voices both high and terrified  
Dan swung the lamp on instinct, his fight kicking in alongside flight. It was a small miracle that he caught wolf mid jump, knocking it off it’s trajectory, the lamp smashing open over it’s head.

It still hit Dan, only instead of him getting a face full of fangs it clipped him, knocking him sprawling backwards as the the animal howled, scrambling to get away as the flames hit and, gas splashing into its fur spread over it.   
Fleeing deeper into the building Dan didn’t rolled towards me, not even giving me the chance to slap at his arm which was also on fire, getting up and dragging the two of us outside as quickly as he could, falling into the snow then and putting himself out. Taking no chances I scrambled back, slamming the door shut behind us, even going as far as to grab a stick to place between the handles to keep them barred shut. Not that it would really stop a wolf that big if it really felt like breaking itself against the doors to get out considering the state of the inside of the building.

Dan was on the ground curled on his side laughing hysterically, holding onto his stomach and beating the snow unable to make himself stop laughing. Thankfully the flames on him were just the surface kerosine burning and didn’t get to his skin or clothing.

“Who’s not an athlete now DAD?” He shouted at no one once he’d started getting control of himself, losing it a second time.

I sat down heavy on the steps leading up to the door breathing heavy finding myself falling into a small fit of the giggles. I tensed, almost kicking him away when Dan abruptly stopped laughing, rolled onto his knees and crawled to me in a mad scramble.  
He grabbed me, forcing me onto the ground with him squeezing too tight, as those giggles turned to tears, his voice harsh and tight as he whispered my name over and over again. 

“It’s okay, It’s okay Danny, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. If you feel sketchy about something I’ll back off of it okay?”  
“Promise?” He mumbled into my hair hiccuping while he finally calmed himself.

“Promise, okay? I promise. Do you want to keep going or turn back now?”

It took a little longer of us laying in the snow before he could let go, apologizing himself about the loss of control and helped me to my feet. Walking back to the track he looked up both sides for a long time thinking. 

Head back and give up, the day a wash with hardly anything worthwhile found. Or keep going and maybe…

“Lets keep going. Might as well push forward the whole day before we head back.”  
He paused, putting an arm around me, leaning more, wanting nothing more than contact.

We’d vaguely talked about this before.   
After finding a little guidebook talking about how to make rabbit snares and various natural clothing it had gotten the two of us talking about our own rescue and what to do.

Dan spoke about trying to stay put, the book mentioned winter flora that we might be able to harvest and use, we were catching fish, maybe rabbits could be added to the mix, we could survive until people came, after all they couldn’t be that much longer…

I’d been the one to argue against it, bitterly long past the belief that rescue was coming. We’d made it two weeks, barely, and were now at the bottom of the barrel of survival. We’d make it a week more sure if the fish kept up, maybe a month we’d scrape by if the weather stayed good and our hunting went well, but eventually the lack of fats, carbs, other nutrients? That we were living hand to mouth in the middle of winter? One day of bad weather and it would catch up, and catch up fast. It was better to try and get to town, put all our cards in one shot than wait for a rescue that seemed like it was never coming, or for the snow to melt so we could find an easier hike out of here.

“Yeah okay.” I knew he was still thinking of the 'stick through the winter' plan, and I knew he knew it was essentially a slow suicide pact, but he was right. If we turned back, that would be the end of exploring altogether, it was too much of a waste of time and resources to keep trying. 

So it was better to keep moving forward.

Or die trying.

Continuing on following the tracks through a ravine cutting around the dam, the fog on the other side was even thicker, I didn’t even see the bridge until we actually stepped on it and could feel the change of ground beneath our feet.  
I had been able to hear the waterfalls, or maybe that was the dam as well, but we couldn’t see anything to either side of us, not even the water below.

It was unnerving but I kept my eyes on the tracks that spanned out just a few feet in front and a few feet behind. 

We didn’t see the train cars ahead until we nearly walked into them.

Dan made a soft noise in the back of his throat as the two of you went around the cars, the first one was upright, but the next was knocked over, and the next after that gone beneath a wall of rocks, frozen mud, and snow.

Blocked tunnel, and mountains to the left.

A rockslide, and blocked tracks to the right.

I was so full of disappointment today my mind just numbly went ‘okay then’ as I approached the rockslide and looked up it, it didn’t seem like a good idea to climb, to the left was just a wall of more rock, to the right the ravine that the bridge went over, and who knew how deep that was.

“Should we-“ I started to ask what Dan wanted to do when he screamed. 

Pained, guttural, raw screaming. 

I scrambled away as he launched himself at the wall of mud, kicking the rock in front of him. More yelling, this time of physical pain, but that didn’t stop him from hitting the train car, the rocks, throwing his bag and anything loose off the ground at them, cursing.   
Beating at it until he was panting and had nothing left in him he stood there staring up at the impassable wall, gasping for breath, before falling to his knees, bowing over, with his head on the ground, and just.

Stopped.

I’d backed up for all this, watching, terrified to see this sort of outburst, seeing him reach his limit, flip out and then-

Sit there.

“Danny?”

I asked softly seeing if he’d do anything, but he wasn’t moving. At a loss for what to do I felt maybe it was best to just give him a moment, let him process his emotions. 

Walking around onto the other side of the cars just to see the extent of the damage I saw that the end car, the front car really since it was the engine, was knocked over by the mudslide, pushed off at an angle into the river. 

Getting as close as I could but careful not to step onto the ice, having learned my lesson once already, I could now make out the waterfall I’d been hearing right there, the train hanging over it by a thread.

We couldn’t climb over the slide, and we could’t go around it.

I backed up with a cold shudder. If that main car slipped when Dan had been freaking out it would have dragged us both down into the misty unknown god only knew how far below. 

We weren’t crossing overtop the trains that was for sure, but maybe over the river there was a way to get across and back to the tracks?

Going back Dan had not moved from his spot. I crouched down next to him, feeling him tense as I put my hand on his back, hoping he would say something as I rubbed slow circles there hoping he would calm down.

“Hey buddy, it’s okay, we can go around? If we cross the river and go along the other bank we cou—“

“What’s the point?” He interrupted me with a dull statement unmoving from his position. “We’re gonna die out here. This side, that side, starving to death, the cold? It doesn’t matter, no one’s coming for us, maybe there’s no one left, maybe we’re already dead and this is hell? We’re dead, it doesn’t matter we’re dead.”

His voice was dull and monotone while he spoke.

Sad, angry, happy, he had a voice with a range of emotions, it made me love listening to him talk. But all of them were stripped right now and there was nothing in him, just a dull void, a shell of a man. 

I understood how he was feeling.

I really did.

“Fuck you.”

He didn’t even look up as I swore at him, or when I kicked him in the thigh. Flinching the second time as I booted him harder in the ribs, finally kicking him hard enough to make him scramble to get away from my boots and hands that were now beating at his big dumb head while cursing at him.

“Fuck /YOU/ you cocks-sucking piece of shit! Fuck you for saving me if this is the bullshit you’re gonna pull you fucking asshole! What the FUCK? What the FUCK YOU FUCKING SHIT!”

I didn’t know what came over me, I was not a violent person, not someone who was prone to fight, and yet I kept coming at him, trying to hit him, I knew I was not doing much damage considering the layers of clothing protecting him from my weak blows, but it was enough to get him up to get away from my heavier feet, enough to get him annoyed with me pushing and punching, enough to get him to try and catch my arms while I swore, barely making any sense anymore, just spitting and hissing at him in rage trying to hurt him while he tried to defend himself.

I could tell as he came back, that limp mask falling off his face as his jaw set and brows furrowed, hissing at me to knock it off, not wanting to hurt me but certainly not wanting to take my abuse.

“NO!!” I yelled as he finally caught my hands stopping my punches switching over to kicking him in the legs again still howling. “YOU DON’T GET TO DO THIS! YOU DON’T GET TO DO THIS TO ME!” 

With a yell as my booted toe caught his shin painfully he finally shoved back knock me over and pinned me down. I struggled under him, all teeth and anger, but he was bigger, maybe stronger, but mostly it was that the fight in me was finally fading and being replaced with crying. 

Sobbing under him because I was tired and scared too, just as much as he was and this was too much. I was more pessimistic than him and I’d kept going even when I knew we were already on our own. 

I’d kept going because he was still there, even when fate or the universe or my own stupidity was trying to take me out I was still here because of him, I hadn’t given up so he wasn't allowed to either.

If he gave up I had nothing.

I already had nothing, he was my hope because I didn’t even have that.

And now.

Breathing hard against my assault Dan curled his face into my shoulder and you could hear him crying too, both of us, laying there stupidly on the ground, wailing like children, clinging to each other because there was nothing else, there was no one else.

We laid there for too long. Crying and shivering in the cold, both of us emotionally and physically drained and not sure what to do next.

It was too late, we couldn’t go back, we’d never make it back to the cabin, we couldn’t stay at the dam, there was really nothing to go back to anyway.

We were dead it was just a matter of picking where.

“C’mon.” I finally mumbled “Get off.”  
He rolled off me allowing me to get up, no longer wanting to sit in the cold wallowing in misery. Dan didn’t say anything, didn’t even look at me, taking my hand as I offered it and getting to his feet, following along like a chastised child while I picked up his bag and gave it to him to carry, leading the way as if I knew where I was going.

I walked, leading him over the small river, nether of you caring how thick the ice was, let it swallow us, we didn’t care.

Over the other bank and around a rock formation blocking the view of the rockslide but I knew it was on the other side of this. Clearing the rocks was a drop, deep into a ravine, standing there a moment it didn’t seem like it connected but it wasn’t like my visibility was far.

But there was a tree.

It crossed the ravine, laying over one of the cars hanging off the edge, the top of it resting on our side, more than wide enough to walk across without even needing the best of balance.

I dared a glance at Dan who stared at the log, glassy eyed and distant, he looked at me, a strange calm smile on his face and I could almost hear the thoughts he didn’t say echoed in my own mind.

/We could walk out to the middle and just jump, it would be over so fast./

A type of peace was in that thought that calmed me.

We were going to die.

Taking his hand I smile back, bleak but moving forward, make it or not.

“We go this together.”

The temptation was there, for me, for him.   
One ‘wrong’ step, one ‘accident’ and one of us could go off the edge, taking the other with them.   
How dangerous this was, spitting in the eye of whatever luck had kept us alive this far. 

A slip of the rocks, the tree not holding our dual weight, the train car being unstable…

So many things and yet none of them touched us. Our unlucky luck holding, guiding us safely across.

Climbing over the train car and back to the ground it took me a moment of wandering up the hill confused as to where we were because the tracks weren’t on the other side of the train, but they’d simply been buried under rock and mud, before we found them again, Dan didn’t seem to care either way, following silently as we made our way back on the trail, walking hand in hand.

I could see a thing up ahead, commenting on it softly hoping to draw a little more of Dan out.

“Hey it’s one of those, train switchy thinggies.”  
“Very technical vocabulary” He mumbled back dryly, an automated tease but a sign he was feeling a little better. The tracks however now split, once again the choice was there, left or right.

“C’mon.” I picked left this time, seeing a little ways in the fog that there was something there up ahead.

My curiosity gave zero satisfaction. 

A rock wall, and a dead end sign.  
It was just a loading, or turn around area, or some kind of weird docking point for the trains there was nothing actually here, the shadow I’d seen was just the rocks. 

“Hey.” Dan tugged my hand drawing me out of my thoughts which were starting to get dark pointing towards the side of the tracks.

A colourful splash of brown clearly on the snow drew my eye first, and a set of tracks.

Bootprints.

“Someone?“

Dan and I both looked at each other, almost not willing to believe it, but with a shrug we followed the trail into the woods

The footprints lead not that far, through a mess of trees against the mountainside and into a cave where at the front was a burnt out campfire.

We stood there stupidly for a while just looking at the campfire. It looked old, well used, maybe a spot where the train people would piss around waiting for the other train to pass or to just avoid work for a while?

The fire pit was dug down, rocks placed around it, burnt out cans crushed and blackened by flames mixed in with the ashes.

Just inside the cave, protected possibly from the worst of the elements was a wooden box.

The cave itself was not that deep, Dan having to crouch a little, his hair brushing the top of it, big enough for maybe five people to sit inside it veered down sharply not going all that deep.

The tracks had not been clean, so we had no idea that whomever had walked up here, took the same path to walk back. We’d done the same thing, taking the already broken path through the snow instead of cutting a new one which just muddled them further, but it’s not like we would have gleaned much information from them anyway.

Whomever regularly stopped here left a cache of dried food, the type you just added water to, added some heat and got a full warm meal. Trail mix, chips, and chocolates, alongside empty beer rings and cardboard boxes of long gone twelve-packs, some rope and wood as well. Not enough to last for any extended period of time but enough that it was a veritable feast for the two of us.

Some of it was obviously used recently, a first aid kit was on the ground open with packages littering the ground.

Whomever came here must have been someone who survived the landslide, and then left? Or maybe another survivor of the plane crash who has simply come this route earlier?

“We should stay the night, see if someone comes back.”

“Can we eat these?”

It was a temptation to dig into their things right now, but there was the chance they’d be back soon and seeing the two of you chowing down on their stuff might sour their opinion no matter how epic of a tale you had for your theft.

“Not… Right now.” But that didn’t mean not at all.

Building a fire we finished the fish instead, it was the thing I was worried about the most. Already cooked and kept pretty cold in the bag, the last thing we needed was food poisoning while travelling so I would rather eat that before getting into the canned or pre-packaged supplies that wouldn’t really go bad.

We ate in silence, eyes and ears open for someone to come, but probably not as attentive as we could have been.   
Unrolling the sleeping bags, stacking the second one just on the first, pulling the boots I’d found out of my bags then I nudged Dan to try them on. He muttered something about his toes pinching but considering his socks were soaked and he had blisters from walking in wet sneakers he tossed his shoes into the box agreeing that he’d wear them anyway.

He took off his boots, draping his wet socks on them and crawled into the sleeping bags, reaching out a hand for me to come join him. 

Kicking off my own boots, my socks still dry, I crawled in with him, letting him pull me on top of him like an extra blanket.

It took a long time for me to fall asleep, I was vaguely aware of Dan moving in the night, getting up periodically to put more wood on the fire, to keep it going and to keep the both of us warm.

A part of me didn’t mind the idea of falling asleep with him never to wake up, let the world find us frozen in slumber if it ever came to find us at all.  
But maybe seeing Dan care that we didn’t gave me some of that hope back.

He was up by the time the new light of a creeping dawn pushed me to get up. Already packed, just sitting watching the fire, feeding it the last few twigs and scraps of garbage.

“Should we wait?” He asked after I’d rolled up our sleeping bags, moving to sit beside him to eat the very last of our fish.  
“No.” This wasn’t a good location and in general I wanted to go, a part of me needed to keep moving, to stop was to let the reality of things get too close. “If they come back it will be along the tracks.”

The sky was still pink as we left, rounding the bend in the tracks the sky was clear, fog dissipated into a warm day.  
Not far ahead was yet another bridge overlooking the ravine and valley. Dan took my hand hand to stop me from simply trudging past with my head down, pulling me close with a gentle “Look”

Pink sky and a mountain view, sun slowly peaking up chasing away the night with a clear baby blue.

It went on forever making me feel small and yet somehow full.

Dry lips and beard scratchy Dan kissed my temple, I looked up at him, looking over the sky, watching the sun rise with a peaceful smile that was no longer dead, that still held some glimmer of hope.

“We go this together.”


	12. The Miracle (Day 16 + Assorted Days)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited October 21, 2017.  
> Sleep? What that.

Unlike Phil’s usual videos there was no intro, no preamble, that he jumped in without the classic “What’s up you beautiful bastards” this time he skipped that over and went right into the story.

“You’ll notice today’s video is a little different, all sponsorship has been moved off, all monetization has been turned off because as I’m sure you know this is not just a personal matter for me but something that has touched the youtube community as a whole.

Yesterday afternoon, flight AC161 from Edmonton to Toronto crash landed somewhere in northern Manitoba, and alongside the 126 passengers was my friend and fellow youtuber Dan Avidan from the channels Game Grumps and Ninja Sex Party. You’ll notice that I and many other’s have been rather vague on the details of the crash and there have been a lot of rumours flying around and that’s why I feel like this video is important because I don’t want misinformation out there about this tragic event. 

So far, on all channels, according to the Canadian police, Air Canada, the CBC there has been no official statement as of what happened. It has been confirmed that shortly before the crash there was a terroristic threat made to the Toronto airport which resulted in AC161 getting lost en-route as all flights at that time were redirected, but that threat hasn’t been confirmed to be connected to the crash itself. According to the CBC, which I gotta say is doing the opposite of most American news stations in making this as unsensational as possible, poor weather conditions are making it difficult for the RCMP and Canadian Military to locate the site of the crash. I know for many people this tragic news is a hard blow and for us in the community it has been as well, many channels have gone silent today in solidarity with Game Grumps and our thoughts and prayers are with them as they are with every person on that flight. Please consider donating to the Canadian red cross, giving blood if you’re able, and just calling those that you care about to remind them that you love them…”

Phill kept talking for a while longer, speaking of his feelings on the event, filling out the video, touching on the rumours that had been spreading and what information was available. 

There was a lot of mystery surrounding what had happened but conspiracy theories and panic wouldn’t help, keeping people informed and in the loop was one of the reasons he did his channel. 

Even when that information was hard for him to talk about.

He didn’t know Dan that well, he could only imagine how his closer friends and family were taking the news.

——

 

We walked the rest of the day, her leading and me following behind, through a tunnel that was also partially collapsed but not enough to block our ability to go through it, to a bridge built just for trains and no one else, dangerous to cross if a train actually came but we doubted one would.

That was probably the one moment that I was most aware, everything else had been one foot in front of the other, but as the wind blew and the structure swayed, creaking and moaning, I felt a perfectly natural flare of fear, of not wanting to do it. But part of me was numb, looking at these challenges with a daredevil appeal.

“I’m already dead, come at me bro.” I muttered to myself right before she asked if we should cross the structure, I looked up at her then, maybe staring a little longer than I needed to, not thinking about the future but just memorizing her face in this light.

Cheeks and nose red with the cold, eyes squinting to look up at me. I grinned and nodded, in my heart I was ready to step after her if her footsteps faltered. 

I would follow her wherever she went.

I cared and didn’t care at the same time, it was a strange and exhilarating muddle of an emotion. Everything new, everything could have been the last thing I ever saw, this step, the next, which one would be the last? Who knew! I didn’t nor did I care! 

It made every second so precious, so liberating because the moment after it didn’t matter so this choice, this step, this breath was the most important for being my last, and I didn’t have to think any further than it.

I kind of felt like I was high.

I followed in her tracks. 

As she kept moving forward, I kept moving forward.  
I am her shadow, her guardian, her pet, her tool, she is all I have to keep me going because I am tired but she’s still here, she has not stopped, and I will not rest yet until she has told me I can.

Another bridge, for cars and train, I look at the waterfall, it’s mist like little icy knives on my forehead and nose. The beard itches but it’s coming in nicely and keeps my chin and neck warm. A part of me so far away wants to shave it /when I get home/ but the here and now me? There is no home, no reason to shave, nothing but now and this and the rainbow on the water and the crows…

I turn to see them circling something, she looks at me and her frown becomes a smile, fake I know, so many of them are right now, but I will smile back and take her hand and let her lead me away from whatever it is they’re feasting on. Not something for us, but the tracks we had periodically seen, the person from the cave, the veered off there and I didn’t see them again.

At least I didn’t have to feel bad about taking all the supplies now.

“If we find a good lake and more fishing huts, I’d like to take a day and fish more I think.” I say aloud to make conversation. I’d been feeling a lot better since we switched from canned food to eating fish, less salt, more proteins. I didn’t have my stomach medication and it was just one thing of many that was bothering me but the fish was easier.

I wished we had more wine.

I wondered if she had more weed.

A part of me felt bad, those cravings came and went over the years and it hadn’t been that hard to quit but that small piece of me that was still thinking of tomorrow of /when I got home/ didn’t want to fall back into bad habits.

The me that was here and now…

Yesterday had been bad.

Wine or weed, both would be nice.

We stand a little closer, it’s colder today than yesterday, a LOT colder. At first I thought it was just moving from having a fire to being outside but no, this is worse, even walking we’re still both hunched and shivering, the sun is bright but the wind slices right through my things.

“Just a sec.” She stops us to pull the sleeping bag off her pack, unrolling it 

“You take it”  
“I’m not that cold” I say this through clattering teeth, I can’t stop shivering but I don’t really feel cold.

I don’t really feel anything.

“I’m Canadian, probably still weigh ten pounds more than your boney ass, and I’m fucking freezing Daniel, put the damn sleeping bag on you.” She scolds and I obey.  
“It’s gotta be minus 25 today, ugh god I’ve always hated winter.”

“Well lets keep going, there will be something up ahead.” My voice is chipper and I know that I’m right.

I mean something could just be both of us dying but that was still /something/

“Oh look.” She doesn’t even get exited anymore, I don’t feel any thrill either when I see the train cars loaded with logs and more logs stacked nearby, it’s just a huge pile of disappointments every time we’ve found something.  
But still we move forward, getting an added “Oh!” of surprise when we see a blue building, one of those little portable homes to the side of the tracks.

A twinge in my chest, not hope but at least something new, something interesting, something…

“Fuck it’s locked.” She’d gone forward first, I still follow in her footsteps, even careful to just step right on them, people might think only one person walked here. Like in Star wars, the sand people.

We were the snow people.

“Dan?” My name pulls me out of my head, she’s looking at me, repeating the question. “Can you give me the hatchet we can pry it open.”  
“Ah yeah.” I pull off my bag but as I set it down in the snow something sticks up out of it.

I’ve never really believed in fate at all but this was certainly a conveniently placed crowbar.

Getting inside it’s a rest stop for the train people, or loggers. Bunk beds stacked up for 4 people to sleep, some desks and lockers, storage things of various types inside.

The lights don’t work but she goes outside with a mumble, telling me to stay put, comes back, grabs some keys off the hook at the door, and goes back out again. 

I put down my bag and look around, there’s a phone but it’s dead, the bunks are all nicely made, I open a container on a shelf, storage for each bed I assume, empty, empty, a stash of snickers bars.

I don’t even feel guilty anymore taking things like this. I used to, when we first entered the cabin, when I took the clothes, as we ate the food, I felt bad, making notes in the journal that I also guiltily took promising myself that I’d find out who these things belonged to, that I would thank them, that I would pay them back.

When we got saved.

I didn’t think that far ahead anymore, there was nothing there, but right here was okay, I liked snickers well enough.

I nearly have a heart attack when the lights come on, a whir starting up as an old oil heater makes plinking noises and kicks in.

“Did it work!?” She bursts back into the hut grinning, I’m scared of the hope that’s on her face, of the spark that’s growing back inside of me.  
Electricity.  
Heat.  
A holiday miracle.

—

“Hey guys.” Mark looks at the camera and takes a deep breath, this is hard for him. “I’m sorry for the lack of content over the last week but after what happened with Dan it’s been rough on all of us. This is a really strange video for me to make, like, whenever there’s a tragedy it always feels far away, like my heart always goes out to the victims, to those that have been hurt, but there’s always been this distance, like this belief that things like that couldn’t really happen to me. It’s a weird feeling to feel this unsafe, to know that a good friend of mine is missing and we don’t know if he’s alive or dead. If anyone on that flight is alive or dead.” 

He sighs his breath shuddering as he tries to talk, blinking back tears. “I want all of you guys out there to know that I love you. My fans, my friends, my family, everyone. I really love all of you, I’m just so grateful that I got the opportunity to meet you, to be a part of your lives, to connect with all of you and I just want you all to know that and to let people in your lives know that too. I just wish I had one more day with Dan because I feel like I never got to really let him know how important he’s been to my life. I’ve been praying every day that I get the chance to tell him.”

The video is cut as his voice breaks a quick blink and he’s back, his eyes more red. “I’m going to be on Hiatus a little longer, I’m taking some time off to spend with my friends, and family. I love doing YouTube, I love making videos but this has really made me aware that I’ve lost out on time being with some really important people in my life because I keep thinking I have time to do that later and this is really driving home that if you love someone, it’s okay to tell them every day, you SHOULD tell them everyday because you never know when you might lose them. I love you guys, thank you for everything, and I promise I’ll be back soon. Thank you all so much.”

It was a hard video for Mark to upload, hard for him to film, hard to edit, the cuts were jerky and really the only edit he made was taking out about 5 minutes of him crying. Once this went up he was going to spend the day with his girlfriend, make time to visit all of the Grumps, all of his friends that he felt he might have become distant with, his family both by blood and by bond. 

He sent out a silent prayer hoping that he would get the chance to see Dan again.

His heart breaking because he felt that he wouldn’t.

—

The hut wasn’t much and we couldn’t stay, but it was warm and a blessing for the night. 

Dan found some candy, and it wouldn’t last long but the heater brought the whole room to a steady 25C, more than hot enough to strip off our layers and hang everything to dry, to settle in for a night of rest, repairs, and preparation for even more walking.

The hut also had it’s own supply of clothes, the people who worked there fully expecting that no one would come or be interested in their work clothing there was some gear for all seasons sitting in the lockers allowing you to swap out thin t-shirts for long sleeved turtlenecks, wool sweaters, thicker work jackets.

Dan’s feet were pretty bad. His bad foot was swelling again, he had blisters and notable frostbite. He cried with his hand stuffed in his mouth while I rubbed his burning feet by the heater trying to get circulation back in them, rubbing them with lotion hoping, but not knowing if it would help.

I cried too when he unwrapped my feet, bits of dead skin coming off and puss oozing out. He washed them carefully, dressing them again and put a pair of fresh socks that we’d found on me.*

As we did this we realized how lucky we’d gotten finding this place as the windows began to rattle, it didn’t take long for the weather to change from good to terrible, and while it was just wind and not a full storm, it was enough for us to decide to stay there until it blew itself out, or the generator gave up, not wanting to fuck around with bad weather. Especially not when we had a heater and lights, some high class modern comforts compared to the last few weeks.

We still weren’t really talking much. 

Especially for me, finding the body of the train conductor, after he’d survived so much only to fall victim to the elements.

To know that if we’d gone right that day instead of left.

If we’d just walked faster, if Dan hadn’t broken down, if I’d listened to him and we left the dam when he’d asked me to…

Maybe we could have saved him? Maybe we could have saved ourselves.

Dan being quite worried me the most. He seemed more like he just wasn’t there, watching me while I organized and repacked things, smiling whenever I looked at him. 

If it wasn’t for the fact that I was the one with the weed I’d assume he was high.

A part of me was a little paranoid he’d kept some of the meth but I had no choice but to trust him when he said he wasn’t using and wasn’t going to. If he’d changed his mind and was, well… 

There was really nothing I could do.

The heater we kept running but I decided to keep off the lights in hopes of preserving the generator as much as we could. If the wind didn’t blow out by the morning but the generator did we’d be in trouble as there was no way to safely light a fire in this building. 

We pulled two of the mattresses off the bunks to sleep on the floor, side by side rather than squeeze into one, not like it mattered, as soon as I got into bed Dan was curled up against my back, arms and legs twined around me tightly. 

He didn’t say anything, but I held his hand as tight as I could, feeling hot drops of water on my neck.

—

After the airplane when down, things stopped.

It was like Arin’s entire life was frozen in this one moment, a phone call, the TV turned on, Brian’s voice and the words.

“That was Danny’s plane.”

Game grumps came to a screeching halt.

Brent and Vernon carefully crafted a tweet and a post to reddit. Ross and Barry put up a video, the last video up for two weeks, explaining the grumps grief and loss, their hopes and prayers that the people had survived, that the wreckage would be found soon.

That Dan would come home safe and sound.

The request that fans be respectful, donate to the red cross and rescue funds, to pray and hope, to love and do good in Dan’s name while they waited.

As Arin waited.

He woke up flipping through news channels, his phone pinging him every time the flight was mentioned anywhere online.

He fell asleep with his phone next to him waiting for something.

Anything.

First it was that they couldn’t find the crash site. Middle of nowhere, strange dead zone, a hacker, a terrorist, an eco-terrorist, an accident, a solar flare, a sign of the end times.

Then it was the weather blocking them out. The cold, the wind, the fog, the snow.

Then it was cave in’s, the crash had flung sections of the airplane everywhere hitting railway tracks making it hard to get to places. They didn’t know what had taken down the flight, a terrorist splinter cell, an accident, the weather, information was mostly theories and being kept quiet by those who really knew what was happening. All anyone knew was that flights around that entire area had been grounded pending the investigation.

An investigation that was going at a snails pace and seeming like it was slowing down every day.

 

126 missing.  
No confirmation on anything.  
For weeks.

Other YouTube channels went silent in solidarity, anyone who had been touched by them, everyone commented, everyone was waiting in baited breath while rescue teams did what they could, one by one going back online, updating again, but game grumps stayed down.

Either Dan would come back and they’d record again or…

Or that would be the end of the show.

Arin couldn’t do it without Dan, couldn’t lose his best friend, his brother, his partner in so many things, and be expected to sit on that sofa with someone else and laugh while playing video games.

It’d never be the same.

The rest of the crew agreed, they all had their own projects, enough of their own internet fame to make it afterward doing whatever they wanted, but this was something none of them wanted to do with Dan gone.

Christmas was a dour affair, finally it was announced that a section of the plane had been unearthed and the tunnel that was blocking rescuers was finally cleared. The list of confirmed dead was coming in, steadily rising, everyday calls would pass back and fourth between Arin and Dan’s family checking to see if (always if, never when, holding onto that if) his name would be on it. Half praying it wouldn’t, half knowing it would and just wanting the agony of not knowing over with already.

“Arin… Arin, Arin, Arin!!!” Vernon was on the sofa, back on social media on occasion, milling around Arin’s house more than the office, most of the staff did these days, not wanting or able to deal with a full business environment (no matter how lax it was) not with how things were. Arin somewhat appreciating the company, all of them needed the comfort of other people right then, in a place that didn’t remind them of everything they were going to lose.

Bluetooth from phone to TV, the whole gang gathered around while Vernon was crying, not even able to get out what he had seen.

“—While unconfirmed and still missing, this sign from two of the survivors of the crash gives hope that they could be found—“

Arin couldn’t even hear what the newscaster was saying, the image flashing on the screen, scratchings carved into the hull of a section the downed plane.

/2 Alive/  
/Keep Looking/  
/Dan Avidan/

Arin got his Christmas wish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Just as a note. Don’t do this if you have frostbite.
> 
> If you are not out of danger and there is a chance that your toes and feet will freeze again (if, for example, you are lost in the woods), wait before rewarming them—refreezing can worsen the tissue damage.  
> If at all possible, avoid walking on your frostbitten feet; putting weight on them can further damage the tissue.  
> It is important that first-aid be administered correctly in cases of frostbite of the toes and feet. The skin must be warmed gradually, in order to avoid further damage. It is important that you resist the temptation to rub your feet or toes. Do not apply direct dry heat to your feet (e.g., from a fireplace or space heater) immerse your feet in warm water (104° to 108° F) and keep them there for 20 to 30 minutes (carefully add small amounts of hot water periodically to maintain the water temperature).
> 
> Dan and Reader would be in a lot more trouble than this, I'm really REALLY Downplaying their injuries. Humans are pretty hardy so there's a SMALL chance they could survive all this shit with fingers and toes still intact but uh... Don't risk it.
> 
> (Also if you're grossed out with my descriptions, how do you think I feel? I researched all this. Way too many rotting bits for my tastes.)


	13. The Will (Day 17)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Added October 22 2017
> 
> Parts from other chapters that needed a place to go.

When I woke up the next morning Dan was already awake, sitting in a chair with his feet up by the heater. He was sewing, fixing his socks that had run a hole in the toe. We didn’t have much clothing other than what we were wearing, not carrying much because we didn’t want to weigh ourselves down any further than we already were.

Keeping the blanket wrapped around my shoulders I crawled closer, resting my head against his leg, he paused to give my head a rub before going back to the task at hand.

After a while I grabbed Hogfather our of my bag and read to him, listening to the windows rattle as the day passed with an almost domestic quality to it.

Around what felt like noon I went back outside to take a look at the generator. All dials and things I didn't quite understand but the pointer thing while not at the F, wasn't at the E so I assumed that it was good enough to hopefully last the night because I didn’t want to leave yet. 

I felt so tired.

“We good?” Dan asked as I came back in.

“Mmn yeah.” 

He’d moved from the chair back to the mattresses on the ground, leaning his back against the wall while he wrote in the notebook. I wandered the room a bit, but it wasn’t like there was much space or that much else to do. We’d picked over everything already, what needed to be fixed was fixed, our clothes were laid out, dry and warm for the next day.

“So… What does your family usually do for the holidays?” I asked getting into the bed with him making him move his legs apart so I could put my head on his stomach between them.

“Not much, I mean we kinda do a bit of the Hanukkah thing, but my parents never super pushed religious stuff on me. Like when I was younger I did a bit more because Avi, my Dad, is from Israel and his Dad survived the holocaust so like, BEING Jewish and just existing is kind of important for them so I did my Bar Mitzvah in Israel with my grandpa there and like fucking five THOUSAND of these hardcore Hassidic Jewish dudes, but that was probably the only time I really felt a big connection to all of that religious stuff, and really it was just knowing that my grandpa and Deb and Avi were proud of me y’know?”  
“That is so cool that you could do that.”  
“Yeah it really was, fucking terrifying too though, I mean I’m a performer now and people ask if I ever get stage fright and it’s like ‘yeah, just that ONE time.’ nothing can top singing in a language you don’t understand to a huge room full of really serious old Jews, wondering if you’re about to fuck up and bring dishonour to your whole family. Prancing around in spandex? Doesn’t phase me a bit.” His voice lightened as he talked, this was probably the most either of you had spoken in the last 24 hours and it was nice to hear it.

Putting his notebook to the side he scooted down, making me move up to put my head on his chest instead, playing with my hair.  
“What about you? Is your family religious?”  
“My Mom can be, she’s Italian Roman Catholic, my Nonna was like Greek Orthodox but my Nonno was Italian Catholic so our family followed that tradition more since my Dad’s kinda, not atheist but apathetic? Which I mean I guess makes him perfectly atheist because he just 100% does not care about any of that.”  
“Huh, why not?”  
“My Grandma I guess just wasn’t religious and my great-Grandpa’s family fled Ireland due to religious persecution which just made him not give a fuck about any of that and raised my Grandpa with a very not caring attitude so that whole side just doesn’t do much for the holidays in general. Mom would go all out for the holidays though, we’d do a turkey for Christmas eve because my Dad liked it but then Christmas Day we’d go to Nonna and Nonno’s and there would be gnocchi and lasagna, I’d always sit at the table and put olives on all my fingers and chase around my cousins as an olive monster while eating them and all the pickles. Like I’d never really eat pickles except for at Christmas? And even as kids we’d have a little glass of wine with dinner and cookies, and pizzelle, and everyone would get together to make the ravioli. Then we’d all pack up and go to church and Nonno would fall asleep every time with Nonna elbowing him to keep him from snoring… I…”

I sniffed my voice breaking remembering all this, the sudden scary realization that I might never see my mother again, thinking of her, worried sick about me this holiday, not knowing if I was alive or dead.  
I was past caring if I lived or died but the idea of my mother living with that grief, reminded of it during the holidays killed me.

“My uh- My Nonna and Nonno died years and years ago, before I even graduated high school but my m-mom… I was going to go home after the wedding and- and do Christmas with her this year I- I don’t usually because it’s so far and cold but I- I was going to this year and learn how to make raviolli like Nonna used to make a-and…”

I let out a pained sound, my throat tight and burning, turning to bury my face into Dan’s shirt, did they make Christmas dinner this year? Were they sitting there doing nothing, waiting for me? Would your cousins and aunts come to help my Mom, to take care of her and Dad because I were gone now?

Dan made soothing noises, rubbing my back, but it didn’t take long before he was crying with me thinking of his own friends and family, thinking of all the friends and family of those on that flight.

“I-I want. To go. Home.” Each word was spat out in a choked breath, my voice shaking with the effort. I wanted to go home, I wanted to see my family again.

I could feel Dan moving as he nodded, squeezing me tighter, rolling us to the side so he could comfortably wrap his legs around me as well, needing a full body cling, his voice coming out in shaking breaths as he begged, “I don’t want to die. Please God please I don’t want to die out here.”

His hand was in my hair, gripping it tight enough that it hurt but the pain in my chest was so much greater I didn’t even care, my nails dug into him, sobs muffled as I bit into his shirt, not caring that I was probably getting snot, spit, and tears all over it. We clung to each other like we could absorb the other, like that aching hollow of fear and desperation could be filled with the other.

We cried, and when we were done we laid there just clinging. Dan finally releasing his grip on my hair, soothingly massaging my scalp, I let go of his shirt and mumbled a harsh apology for it.

He spoke then, more about his Grandmother he called “Mom” telling me about her long, long life, his parents and how they met, his sister and brother-in-law, his nephews. 

I spoke about my family, my grandparents as well, cousins upon cousins, and all the aunts and uncles. My parents, our quarks and holidays, our fights and the little things we bonded over. 

We talked about wanting to see them again. Wanting one more Christmas, one more birthday, one more hug, one more special dish that only they could make.

Talked until we had no words left in us, until the sky had gone dark and we were beyond exhausted and yet…

And yet I felt better. 

Voices run out our hands moved instead, gently running over one anothers faces. Trailing eyelids, feeling the beard he was quickly growing, fingertips running over chapped lips, the gentle run of the scar on his eyebrow, the sharpness of his cheeks.  
His cold fingers brushing under my shirt to feel my hips, ribs, run over the ridges of my spine. Tracing patterns along my arms up to my neck, resting there, feeling my heat, my breath, my pulse.

Needing to feel another person, another life, needing to confirm.

I’m here, I’m here.

I’m still here.

—

“Two more survivors of the AC161 crash have been found in a turn of events that has lead to a full scale investigation of the area for meth production.”

Arin choked on his sandwich hearing the words he’d been keyed into for the past few weeks, pointing to the TV to get Suzy to turn it up instead of trying to help him breath again.

“— After finding hidden caches of methamphetamines hidden in two locations in the surrounding area of the AC161 crash Canadian drug task forces have been called in—“

“I DON’T CARE WHO WAS SAVED? It’s Dan it’s gotta be Dan right?”

A few survivors had been picked up by that point, dug out in pockets from the tunnel that had collapsed, picked up from small hunters cabins near the train tracks. 

10 people so far had been found, barely holding on but alive. 

“We all saw his name on that plane, two survivors, it’s gotta be him.” Suzy was hugging Arin’s arm, just as excited to see Dan or hear his name to confirm that he was still alive. When they saw his message, every time a survivor was mentioned it was torture. Knowing he’d lived through the initial crash but being unable to locate him.

Arin had felt anger at first, Dan had lived but where was he? Why didn’t he stay with the airplane?

But none of the survivors that lived had stayed near the crash sites. No food and exposure to the elements, those that had were some of the bodies that had been recovered.

And considering it was two weeks in by the time Dan’s message had been found…

Arin didn’t want to think about that.

“—Widening the search to find these two survivors holed up in a nearby cabin, one used to make the drugs.—“

Arin covered his mouth and let out a choked sound as the two survivors waved at the cameras, one in a stretcher looking somewhat worse for wear but the other still upright and grinning.

He needed to be happy, it was okay, he couldn’t help but cry because…

Again, neither of them was Dan.

“—Needless to say drug charges won’t be laid against these two lucky survivors but it gives us a little hope that some of the other 20, still unaccounted for passengers might have survived.”

Arin wasn't really religious, but still he put his hands together.

Dan had to be out there.


	14. The Walk (Day 18)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited October 23, 2017

—  
Day 18  
—

It was tempting to stay in the loggers tailer even longer, being able to wake up legitimately warm was a luxury that I never really appreciated until now.  
We lazed about for far too long in the bunk bed letting fingers crawl over exposed skin, pulling one another back in every time movement was made to get up. But the sleepy dream couldn’t last a second day, and we both knew it, I’d checked the generator as soon as we’d gotten up and by the time we were packed and ready to go we heard a light rumble, the heater hiss and stutter to an end letting me know that the dial I did know how to read had finally hit the E meaning the end of our luxuries.

The sky was a clear icy blue, which was beautiful to see but also meant it was freezing outside, a wind kicked up the moment we cleared the side of the building as we walked back towards the tracks spotting tire tracks leading to a road that lead down the mountain from where the loggers and the man on the train must have come to work from.

“Okay, these have to be fresh-ish” I said looking at the tracks in the snow. It had snowed multiple times since we’d crashed so we could place these as being some time after the last snow, but not as recent as since we’d arrived at the trailer since the wind had covered them somewhat. 

If the man on the train had driven up here, where was his car? Did someone drop him off? Where were they? When were they coming back?

With no answers to these questions we moved forward.

I could hear Dan, hunched over with the sleeping bag back out over his shoulders muttering “fuck me, fuck this, fucking wind, fucking snow.”

“Ah the Canadian winter prayer~” I teased getting a little laugh out of him since that was nearly a word for word repetition of the things I would say nearly every morning leaving the warm safety of our bed. 

Sadly out on the road there was little protection from the wind, it was coming directly up in the same direction we were walking, and there was not much around to block it at all. It was cold and a long walk down the mountainside so while the silence of before, the sad gloom that had been hanging over us had finally been pushed aside, at least for now, the both of us didn’t talk much, needing to keep our breath and energy, not knowing how long the slog ahead would be.

The road twisted down, it might have been faster to slide down the hill but enough trees and rocks were in the way to block our view of where we’d fall, considering how we were pretty badly injured already it didn’t seem like a wise choice, even if that wasn’t the case, the snow on the road was nearly as thick as the snow on the ground, we didn’t want to lose the road taking the “shortcut” and then need to climb back up the hill to it. 

The birds were quiet but they were probably smartly huddled together somewhere keeping warm. I wished we could have just stayed at the trailer till the wind let up, but after what felt like at least an hour of walking it seemed like this icy gale was going to be an all day event.

Great.

A dog, or wolf’s barking howl echoed through the trees making us both freeze, looking around nervously before a gust of wind pushed us forward again, if it was a dog then maybe there were people around, if it was a wolf well…   
Shelter was what we were hoping to find at the bottom of the road, either a house or another trailer or even just a few more of those stacks of wood, anything to hide behind to get out of the wind.

While the road was covered in snow, and little hard to distinguish, there was an obvious split in it that we came to, one going straight to the right, the other going down to the left.

“What do your elf eyes see?” I asked as Dan stood in the middle of the road squinting into the distance of both directions to decide which path might be better, his extra foot in height over me gave him a slight advantage when it came to how far ahead he could see.

He grinned at the reference but shrugged, the path to the right slanted upward slightly so it was harder to see that far that way, the path to the left went down more but then turned so we couldn’t see where it would fully lead toward.

“Jack shit, in both directions. I dunno left might be less windy?”  
“Fuckin’ good enough for me.”

Left we went, the wind now blocked by the hill next to us, giving you a slight reprieve from the cold but not by much, it just went from -25C with windchill to a still frosty -10C.

15 minutes and one turn later we saw that both roads just merged back together, it was designed only to be a passing area for the trucks going up or down the narrow mountains.

I had a weird dull feeling seeing that, glad we hadn’t missed anything important by taking the “wrong” path, glad to have been out of the wind at least for a time, yet somehow miffed that we had to make the choice in the first place.

Dan just grunted a “Huh…” of realization pausing where the road merged once more, looking at me I put up my hands with a grumbled “Whatever” and kept walking.

It must have been well past noon based on where the sun was when our uncontrollable shivering was getting to the point where I were getting tired of doing it and giving up was starting to sound really good.  
Thankfully we finally reached the end of the mountain road and hit the crossroads of a clear stretch of paved highway.

Across the street from where we were standing was yet another log storage area, we already knew we were heading towards water, the icy cold wind was coming off that water. Even this long in the wild without seeing another person I still looked both ways before crossing the street.  
Heading closer to stacked wood getting around the one pile in the front we saw three building along the bank of the lake.

One of the buildings had caught on fire probably a long time ago, covered in snow with bits of dried grass sticking up in areas where the blackened wood protected it enough to show that it hadn’t been in use for at least a year if not longer, we moved past it to the next, a small cabin with smashed out windows, the doors nailed shut with boards.

“Well fuck…” Dan grumbled as we circled the place seeing if there was a way to get in, but it was pointless, the place was an abandoned shack and would offer little protection from the cold even if we did bother to pry off the wood boarding up the doors.

Third time was the charm, the final building was yet another blue trailer like the one on the top of the mountain. Much like the original one it too was locked, but we’d brought the crowbar we’d found with us and also forced it open getting inside and out of the wind that seemed even stronger now that we were right on the lake.

While Dan was breaking into the trailer I’d also looked out over the lake, a lot of the logs were in the water, frozen there, stacked up in perfect lines like someone was building a giant raft.

“Wonder what this place is…” Dan mused once we were inside the building.

My brain was somewhat frozen but I knew the answer to that…

“It’s a- a… fuck I know this.” For some reason the word I was looking for made me hum a tune mumbling pieces of lyrics “And they go hurling, burling, down white waters that’s where the log riders sing…”

Dan stared at me puzzled. “I have no idea what that song is.”

“Fuck right you’re not Canadian… It’s a uh log something? They dump the wood in the water and then push it down on the current, I thought they did it in rivers but… Maybe this lake is the dump point and there’s a river off someplace.”  
“Oookay, and why the song?”  
“Old animated commercial thing, played on the CBC like all the time, song about log riders which is the only reason I know what this place is. Can’t remember the lyrics but it’s like—“ I keep humming the jaunty tune, the words still escaping you. “This is going to bother me for at least the rest of the day.” I griped.

Whatever group had been using this trailer was a cleaner more organized sort, which meant there was nothing left to scavenge for Dan and I. The bunk beds were stripped down and packed away, no secret stashes of food that might attract animals, just a calendar and schedule on the wall with a few notes to whomever the next shift of workers were detailing the work finished and what they’d need to do once the ice melted in March.

There were maps but they didn’t mark the roads or anything that we recognized from our walking, sections of forests numbered and highlighted with notes that didn’t make sense to us but obviously would mean something to someone later.

“Okay so, loggers will be back once the snows melt, so at least we know there will be someone up around here by at LEAST then.”

“Yay.” Dan grumbled dryly waving his hands in the air with an eyeroll. 

It had been getting harder to keep track of the days so we didn’t know how long it would be before the snows would melt. We might have been able to survive this long, but we both knew the whole winter was another thing.

“There’s gotta be a little logger town nearby. Someplace they gas up, get their supplies while they’re out here. I mean they’ve got these little cabins set up and there was that camp we were at. If this is the main access point to all of that then there’d at least been a tiny ass town nearby.”

The highway was a good sign, it was cleared of snow which meant cars were still driving on it, that people still came out here, maybe not a lot of people, but all we needed was one.

“There would be people there right?”  
“Maybe… A lot of the logging towns pack up when the loggers do and head off for the season—”  
Dan stared at me, his heart not even able to break anymore with the bad news, he felt numb to it considering the constant level of shitty news.  
“—But there were two trains in this area that were still working so it might be busier? At least there would be houses, and phones, at least one or two little shops or gas stations, so I mean as long as you don’t mind a little B&E we should be able to get ahold of SOMEONE.”

Dan looked out the window and nodded, clapping his hands together with a grin.  
“Technically we’re already criminals so lets fucking DO THIS.”

I wondered how much of that was actual hope and how much of it was faked just to keep our spirits up. It was an emotional roller coster, having hope in a situation like this, the only thing keeping us going, and yet having it constantly being crushed under the heel of reality, a juggling act of insanely good luck and equally just as bad.

I’m not really religious but this almost made me believe in a higher power, only that higher power was a total dick.

Heading back outside and back to the highway we stood in the middle of the road for a while looking down each way but seeing nothing but road curving away into trees, no hint as to which one was the better choice.

“Which way?” Dan asked. “I chose the last one, your call this time.”

“I would fucking kill a man for a map.” I grumbled. “At least then we’d know if we were heading off to the middle of nowhere, or towards town.”  
“Well there are power lines there so…”

Dan pointed up, I hand’t even bothered to look up, head down trudging in the snow, head down looking at the road, head always down just keeping it protected from the wind. 

Seeing the power lines I knew they were a good sign that we were near something, something that indeed would have power, but I knew from years of highway driving in the middle of nowhere those lines could run for hundreds of kilometres before they reached a town, assuming they were still functioning and not just old relics left up forgotten in the middle of nowhere.

Still since they ran in both directions they didn’t really give us any clue as to where to go.

It was a gamble. One way could lead to the town, the other would just take us off who knew where.

“Lllleeeefffttt?” Dan slowly offered, that had been his choice almost every time.  
“Last time we went left I nearly died, right lead us here.”  
“Left before that lead us to the cave with that little camp!”  
“And the right lead us to that trailer with the generator.”  
“Well… Left gave us the trail that was out of the wind.”  
“Which means that it’s time for a right, to be fair to both directions.”

If I had a coin I’d flip it, really these arguments were arbitrary and the spat was more out of frustration and boredom then any facts. Dan threw his hands up with a laugh and ceded to my flimsy point so we went right.

Really it was left if we’d gone that way from the mountain, it was just right since we’d flipped around crossing the street, maybe since it was both it’d give us double luck?

Or twice the bad luck.

Tree’s were blocking the view of the lake for the most part as we walked, a good thing since they cut back the amount of frosty wind coming fromthe water. The wind was most likely the main reason the road was clear we knew a car passed by not too long ago from the tracks and the small frozen trails on the road from pushed down snow on tires. Granted “not too long ago” could have been anytime between today and the last snowfall a few days ago, as far as we knew the few frozen crusted signs of human life could have been from weeks ago.

An extra strong gust of wind made me look up, seeing that the trees had opened up here giving us a perfect view of the entire lake.

Which made me notice that it might not have been a lake but a cove.

I could see the mountains and trees circling around the water opening up right in the middle to a foggy nothing, was that the ocean or was this just a lake so massive that I couldn’t see the other side from this angle? Was that the opening to the river or…

“Are we on the Hudson Bay??” I asked aloud making Dan look at me and put up his hands in a gesture of ‘I don’t know’

I knew we were most likely in Manitoba but I had no idea what towns or cities were anywhere around the Hudson, or even if there were any at all.

Going off the road to look closer at the water I could see that to the right on the lake was a small island, squinting I could make out a little cabin on top of the hill. Probably an expensive summer cabin, private but it gave me hope that maybe there was a small town nearby, after all there had to be a port where that person went to to get supplies.   
The lake was frozen over so we wouldn’t need a boat to cross but that island was more than far enough away on questionable waters, there was no way I felt brave enough to attempt walking over the ice to it. It worried me since maybe it was a sign that we should have followed Dan’s suggestion and gone left, what if the town was closer to that little island cabin and it was on that side of the lake, opposite to where we were headed?

It would be a few hours of back tracking I supposed but at least from the other side of the lake we would be able to look straight across the lake and see the town before we went wandering to find it.

“Just a sec…” I called Dan to stop, climbing over the rail separating the road from the water to stand at the very edge of the lake, maybe a few steps onto the ice to get an even better look around the edges of the lake. This way we’d know better if we were heading in the right direction before committing any more time to it.

Dan made a stressed noise behind me, hopping over the rail and standing on the edge of the water, not chancing the ice, but I felt his fingers brush the back of my backpack giving me a tug back from going any further.

The logging yard was in the way of my view to really see if there were any houses or buildings on the side of the lake that the cabin was on. But I did have a view to see there was another small island jutting out from the ice on the side we were walking toward, no houses that I could see on that one, at least not from this angle, but I could see a few fishing huts dotting the ice that way, and it was hard to make out since Dan wouldn’t let me go out any further onto the ice to see past the trees and the full edge of the lake, but it looked like maybe there was the very tip of a small boat dock sticking out.

“Is that a boat dock over there?” I pointed making Dan pull me back to the shore and then take my hand so he could take a cautionary step out, hand over his eyes to cut down the glare from the sun trying to make it out.

“Maybe, or more logs? I can see two ice fishing huts though so there’s gotta be some kind of cabins around that way right?”  
“Fingers crossed.”  
“Is that a cabin?” Now Dan was looking over to the island, checking out the same view I had been.

“Yeah but, I wouldn’t risk it.”  
“Oh fuck no, not even a little bit.” 

Wouldn’t it have been nice to get out there to that little cabin on the hill, a pipe dream of finding it full of supplies and being able to spend the winter there.

Sadly not going to happen.

“C’mon, lets keep going, if there’s a dock then at least there might be something, push come shove we spend the night in a fishing hut and work out what to do from there.”

It was still a far off ways in the distance, where the dock might be, a straight line on the ice we could have made it in a few minutes, but taking the safer route, the road twisted away from the water, curving again moving back showing the lake again, giving us a gauge of our distance as we were now closer to one of the ice huts even if it was taking longer.

I had only looked up briefly to see the hut and our position and wasn’t planning on stopping until Dan pulled on my arm pointing out over the ice, next to the hut I saw what he did, a group of about three deer, moving their way across the lake.

“Should be thick enough to hold us up, at least as far as the huts go.” Dan commented considering while two of the deer were on the small side, at least one was probably a buck and most likely weighed more than the both of us combines.

“Yeah, at least we know somewhat close to the shore is safe, I dunno if I’d go out as far as the islands.”  
“Nah… Probably not worth it.”

I were just about to move on when the deer looked up a millisecond before we heard a loud smashing sound followed by an echoing crack, the heard turning just as the first ripple of noise hit, running from the direction it came from. 

Dan and I also jumped, uselessly screaming instead.

“The fuck was that?!” Dan asked after the echoing of the sound was gone.  
“The fuck if I know!” I snapped back a little freaked out, after weeks silence hearing something that loud took me to a 15 on a 10 point scale of anxiety, especially the metallic nature of the noise echoed memories I didn’t want to have.

Standing there for a moment longer not sure what to do, a part of our base instincts telling us to follow the deer and run AWAY from the bad scary noises, but the more human side of us, full of curiosity that got many of your ancestors killed, or gave them a leg up on other animals, said to go towards it and investigate.

Not entirely sure where the noise came from it felt like were headed that way anyway so, off we went, opposite direction of the deer, towards the noise.  
It was still a good half an hour if not longer of walking before we got close to where the noise must have come from, (time was a fuzzy thing when you didn’t have a watch) and I could partially see in the distance what it had been, Dan cursing the moment he saw the tree bent over, the power lines now cut.

“You have got to be fucking me, You have GOT to be COMPLETELY fucking me!!” Dan jogged forward as we finally saw what was under the tree, what had caused it to knock over.

It was a truck.

I chased after him, skidding on the snow bumping into him when he stopped, jumping back quickly. The way his fists were clenched, how he was staring at the empty car just shaking.

His stance reminded you of the last time he’d lost it, the violent outburst kicking at the rocks, the small loss of his mind.

I didn’t think he would ever hit me but when you were as broken as we were, there was no telling what a person would do.

“HELLO??” He started yelling looking around. “HELLO IS ANYONE FUCKING THERE?!”

He walked away from me, away from the car shouting still, hoping desperately that whomever had been there was still around.

Pulling off my glove I felt the hood of the engine, stone cold but there was no layer of frost yet on the windshield or the outside of the car, which meant that the noise we heard was this car sliding off the road, into the tree, taking out the phone lines.

By the time we walked over here whomever was driving must have called for someone to pick them up, or walked back to wherever they’d come from.

I wasn’t a tracker beyond what was painfully obvious, were those Dan’s footprints or the drivers? (or hell, even mine?) I didn’t know if the tire tracks were from this car or from the car that came to pick them up, I could guess the direction the car had been driving based on which way it hit the tree, (assuming the back end was where it was coming from) the road was icy so there were hardly any tracks and the wind was strong enough to be blowing away any hints.

Since no one and nothing came from the direction we had been walking in meant there had to be something ahead, that you were headed in the right direction towards…. SOMETHING at least?

Dan had stopped calling, instead cursing inventively at the sky, then laughing, just laughing in a way that kind of worried me but combined with his silly curses it made me giggle on that edge of sanity too. 

It was kind of funny, to be this close to being saved and then have everything completely fucked up yet again.

Bad luck  
Good luck  
Both?  
Neither?

The doors were locked in the car and looking in the windows there was nothing in there super worthwhile to justify breaking in, clearly if whomever hit the tree left the car here, it was because it wasn’t working and the keys were gone anyway and I certainly didn’t know how to hotwire a car.

“So.” Dan had stopped with his ‘moment’ and finally calmed down wandering back over to the car leaning against the bumper to rest. “We’re heading in the right direction?”  
“I guess so.” 

He giggled nodding and looking ahead, maybe not quite back into the realm of calm but getting there.  
“Keep going?”  
“Unless you’ve got something better in mind?”

The option was there, to sit with the car and wait, hope for a tow truck to come, but who knew when that would be happening IF that would be happening today and we were both still absolutely frozen. With the sun on the downward decent and as exhausted as we were we needed to figure out a shelter for the night soon.   
One better than the car itself.

“Yeah, lets make it to that dock, either there will be something there or we can shack up in the ice hut that was closest to it. If there’s a tow coming it’ll hopefully be coming from that direction so we’ll flag em down if it does.”  
“Or just lay on the road and let it run me the fuck over” Dan giggled morbidly under his breath. 

I nodded in agreement, after all I could understand the sentiment. It had been a long day of walking with hope of rescue so tantalizingly close only to continue to be snatched away.

“Hows the boots?” I asked as we started walking again trying to get my mind off the car and the frustration of everything.  
“A little pinchy, but holy shit DRY? And a whole lot warmer.” He gave me a little push with a grin to show he wasn’t being serious when he teased “MAYBE not worth almost getting eaten by a fucking direwolf for, but I’m glad you grabbed them.”  
“Trips not over yet, maybe getting eaten by the wolf wouldn’t have been so bad.”

He put an arm around my shoulders giving me a squeeze and a shake   
“Hey, c’mon now, we’ve got the most fucked up luck but the car just means we’re headed the right way so… Silver lining.”  
“I am to tired to even gather up the spite in me to possibly argue with you right now.”  
“See, I’ve already got my silver lining!”  
“Huh?”  
“You, shutting up.”  
“… C’mere lemmi push you in the snowbank.”

He let me go and jumped away as I gave the smallest of chases, really just two quicker steps in his direction with him running three before both giving up. 

We were tired after all and while fun, we just didn’t have the energy for it.

The sky was just starting to dim as Dan looked up, his hight giving him a vantage of being able to see over the heaps of snow on the side of the road that you couldn’t see anything over.  
“I see something.” He commented spurring a burst of energy in us to pick up the pace towards whatever it was.

A dip in the snow to the sides showed a ’t’ intersection, the thing Dan saw being a house on the right turn.

Sadly, a house that had a while ago caught on fire.

But turning up the road toward it as we stepped into its yard I could see their neighbours house, and across the street from them another house that was sitting next to the dock that we’d spotted from the road.  
The house on the dock was more of the summer cabin style but the house right next to the burnt one was a regular house, a regular house that someone might still be living in.

As we crossed the yard into the next one has to slog through the snow, unlike the highway the road here had not been cleared or driven on for at least a few snowfalls.

Going up to the door Dan tested the doorknob first, trying to get in before knocking, yelling again, knocking louder, finally giving up.

“Wanna break in?” He asked, guilt long gone over such things.  
“Mmmm” I thought about it, pardoning myself with a “just a sec” while circling the house, trying the back door to see if it was unlocked and looking in the windows to see if it was worth the effort.

“Nothing’s in there.” I called back as I followed my own tracks in the snow back to the front, whomever lived there had fully moved away. “Lets check the cabin over there, this place doesn’t seem to even have a fireplace.”

Dan made a face, these were summer cabins so of course they probably wouldn’t have fireplaces, for us however it was so essential to have fire, after so long in the cold the idea of a house without a fireplace seemed crazy to us.

“Gas tank” As we crossed the street I pointed out the lakeside cabin had two large tanks on the outside part of the building.

The front door was locked, but swinging around “I officially love all Canadians.” Dan said as he tried the backdoor which was blessedly left unlocked. “I hate the fucking weather here but fuck y’all are trusting.”

Getting inside the back door lead right into a small kitchen, so clean and tidy with the mat right there I actually kicked off my boots, giving Dan a little nudge to do the same.  
“It’s cold!”  
“Yeah but we don’t want to ruin their carpets c’mon be polite.”  
“Oh for fucks sake.” He complained but did as I said, dropping his bag at the door to unlace his boots so as not to track snow all through the house.

Wandering ahead I went into the next room, a little living room with thankfully a fireplace against the wall. It had a simple classy design, sheets covered some of the furniture, a summer home that was visited maybe two or three months of the year, and then left in limbo for the rest. I was more than a little pleased to see bookshelves next to the fireplace filled mostly with books and a few assorted knick-knacks.  
Whomever lived here clearly preferred the quiet of a novel over TV since there wasn’t a television in the room.

Going halfway up a small flight of stairs I could see they lead up into the loft bedroom, A low pointed roof Dan would have to duck to get into the nice large bed, a writing desk next to it and a small gas oil heater between the two against the wall. Even with the power out, as long as it had gas it would hopefully light, if not then hopefully the fire burning downstairs would be enough to heat the whole house. I imagined it would since it was a pretty small cabin. It wouldn’t take much to warm up.

If not then it wouldn’t kill us to sleep on the floor in front of the fireplace.

“Powers out!” Dan called up to me from downstairs, so used to not having electricity after all this time I hadn’t even thought to check, “But holy shit!”  
“What?”  
“ALL THE FOOD!”  
That sent me running back down the stairs.

We were still on starvation rations, sharing between the two of us small meals that would barely satisfy one person, we’d been hungry since we set out and that empty feeling hadn’t gone away. Our bags were completely emptied of anything except water and even that was running low.

Getting into the kitchen Dan was pulling out things from the pantry.   
Standing next to him I could see what he meant, the shelves had so much. Dried fruits, fancy chocolates, bottles of wine, basic staples that wouldn’t go bad if left over the winter clearly left by people who didn’t care if they went bad anyway since they were of the fancy variety. These were just fun food for someone who was rich when they felt like entertaining and the local store most likely didn’t carry what they wanted to impress their guests.

But even past that was flour, white and brown sugar, rice, dried pasta, cans of salmon, oysters, anchovies.   
Herbs, spices, soup mixes, and bouillon cubes. 

The cache of someone who was rich, and also thankfully enjoyed cooking as a hobby.

“Whomever lives here is going on my Christmas card list for the rest of their life.” I said feeling tears prickle my eyes.  
“Absolutely fucking honorary family.” Dan said pulling down a bag of marshmallows from a top shelf and giving me a wide grin.

I wrapped my arms around his middle, laughing.

Good luck.  
Today was definitely full of good luck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song in Reader's head was this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upsZZ2s3xv8 The Log Drivers Waltz (Not Log Runner's she was mis-remembering the lyrics for the most part)


	15. The Water (Day 19)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> October 23, 2017  
> (sleep? What that?)

—  
Day 19  
—

After getting into the cabin it was tempting to just gorge ourselves on the snacks and pass out. The walk had been long and hard, both physically and emotionally but we knew that there was still work to be done before we could relax. There was a fireplace in the cabin, and while we knew there were tanks of something outside, maybe a generator, it was getting dark and we were cold enough we didn’t want to waste any more time messing around with something we didn’t understand.  
By the time we found a pile of logs outside, scrounged out enough to keep a fire going all night, and had that all set up we were wiped. Dan pulled out a box of crackers and the plan was to just “lay down for a second” on the floor in front of the fireplace to warm up before making something more hearty for dinner. Three crackers and one “I’m just resting my eyes” later the next thing I knew it was cold and the sun was coming up.

At least we knew the cabin retained heat really well, the fire must have gone out a while ago since there weren’t even active embers in the pile of ashes but snuggled close to Dan under the cover of the sleeping bag I was warm enough I hadn’t woken up the entire night.

“Ughhh fuck muh back.” Dan groaned rolling over bowing on his knees with his forehead on the ground trying to stretch his aching muscles out.   
I wasn’t much better but at least able to get to my feet, arms above my head to pop out the kinks in my own back.   
Too much walking, not enough water (or food) and then sleeping on the floor.

The two of us were real gluttons for punishment.

Yawning I looked around the tiny living room again, it had been dusk when we’d arrived and given the place a quick once over, not really exploring too deeply especially once we’d been distracted by food, and busied by the need for a fire. 

To the back was the kitchen and the back door where we came in. It was small, just a stove, sink, the pantry, a lot of counter space with expensive looking granite tops. A regular sized fridge and dishwasher, all the modern luxuries one would want while pretending to ‘rough it’ out in the woods.   
The kitchen had an open concept that flowed into a breakfast nook, seating along the window with a single extra chair and a small table for two. From there it opened up to the living room. To the opposite of the kitchen and nook was the living room which also had a window and the front door, there was a thick wall separating the kitchen from the living room, a door leading downstairs into the unknown dark and a set of stairs against that wall leading up to a loft bedroom, under the stairs storage space, and on the final opposite wall from the basement door was the fireplace, next to another door that I’d assumed was a closet and passed by on my original sweep but now that I was snooping through everything, opened it up revealing the bathroom (I’d gotten so used to the situation of having an outhouse or doing my business outside I’d almost forgotten most houses had real toilets.)

“There’s a tub!” I announced to Dan looking into the bathroom and seeing a bathtub against the wall where the fireplace was, an interesting way of keeping the water and bathroom continuously hot as long as the fireplace was also going.

“And?” Dan was finally crawling to his feet not really catching on where you were going with your excitement

“And a gas tank outside! Which means maybe hot water, which means WE are getting a bath!” I looked over at him, a small flash of excitement on his face before it turned into a worried frown.

“We just walked past 2 houses that were burned down do you know what you’re do—”  
“I DON’T CARE WE ARE GETTING A HOT BATH!”

It took a lot of fiddling around, finding the water tank in the basement, going outside and twisting the gas one way, figuring out how to turn that on, not blowing ourselves up trying to get the pilot light lit under the water tank, but a gas oven, gas hot water tank, gas oil heater, and the fireplace going, water was boiling everywhere because neither hell nor frozen pipes were keeping me from using that tub to finally get a full, proper bath.

At times I’d try to boil a pot of water back at the cabin, strip off my shirt by the fire and wash myself down, but the work involved in doing so was never worth the payoff. Water too hot, and quickly turned too cold, the air DEFINITELY too cold especially when wet.  
Unable to properly clean for over two weeks, being around campfires, the sweat from working, and walking, had given the two of us a thick layer of grime and sweat. Not that we cared or noticed, the level of stink on the both of us was thick enough we couldn’t smell the other anyway.  
If I put my nose right against Dan and tried at best I could say that he smelled like ashes from all the fires. Maybe a little bit like fish but that was probably on his clothes.

It might have taken far too long, time that could have been spent searching the town, finding other people, gathering supplies, but I was tired, my body hurt, my feet hurt, and I wanted this. If we found someone tomorrow then I wouldn’t regret not looking and feeling like death, and if we didn’t find anyone then a day of rest and relaxation to recharge before the next leg of our trip would be just what we needed.   
Tub filled with steaming hot water, maybe a little too hot for comfort but not so hot that it would burn too badly, the bathroom steaming hot wet air into the rest of the house.

“Are you coming?” I asked.

Dan was idling in the livingroom watching me as I put fresh pots of water on all the heating areas again, the tub full enough for a single bath for me but I wanted a potential second soak. He’d assumed that the second set of water was for him, not that I was going be sharing.

“Um… I— You want me to?”  
“Well if you don’t want to that’s fine but I’m using every drop of hot water in that tank so if you want any~” I teased pulling my shirts off, dropping them to the ground in front of him with a grin, wandering into the bathroom in just my bra, hips swinging.

Hindsight maybe it wasn’t the sexiest thing, skudgy bra that I’d been wearing for over two weeks, stained with grime and sweat. Flashing my unshaved underarms, body covered in so many layers of ash that my face was a very different colour from the rest of me…

Dan’s mouth slacked open a little, his eyes wide like he’d never seen anyone hotter in his life. I gave him a look while I unhooked my bra, eyebrows raising with an expectant “Well?” giggling while he shot up, tripping and cursing trying to get his own clothes off on his way to the bathroom.

He stopped in the doorway, steam already misting the entire room up it was so warm, the air thick with heat and humidity. I’d already stripped down, not wasting my time listening to him thump around trying to get his own clothes off and make it in here to join me. Instead I was slowly trying to get my foot into the water, wincing as the heat was too much on my poor feet that had gotten so used to being frozen almost all the time. 

They hurt, every time we got somewhere warm they burned like I was walking on coals and this hurt even more. But it was a good pain, it meant that as damaged as they’d gotten, as cold as they were, the nerves weren’t entirely dead so hopefully when all this was over, I’d be walking away with all 10 fingers and toes.

“Um”   
I looked up seeing Dan standing there stammering, looking embarrassed, like he wasn’t supposed to be in here and certainly wasn’t supposed to be looking at me.

I giggled, noticing the very obvious tent in his boxers, flattered by it really, considering I could guess what I looked like. Still black and blue, dirty and saggy and furry. Not the beautiful disheveled look of women in survivor movies but more the sweaty, gross, blisters on my feet, and zits on my ass image that was the reality of these situations.

“C’mon, it’s fine.” I smiled, finally standing in the tub, feeling the heat crawl up my body ready to melt down into it and never come back. But I wanted to share it with Dan, it was after all a rare and well deserved treat for us both, and considering how long it had taken for the water tank to heat and all the pots to boil, one that still wouldn’t be repeated anytime soon especially since I didn’t know how long the gas would last for and if we needed to stay longer, I would rather save it for emergencies.

 

He pulled down his boxer briefs, raising an eyebrow at me when I very obviously looked at his dick. Both of us giggling, Dan looking away feeling embarrassed over how aroused he already was. I could understand why, he was probably thinking about how he must have looked, all bones and still bruised, his hair once a fluffy mess was lanky and flat against his shoulders, weighed down with so much oil buildup and constantly wearing a hat. 

I didn’t care, he was here, and alive, the most beautiful person I had ever, or would ever see.

Coaxing him forward to take my hand I got him close enough to tug at his beard, pulling him down for a chaste kiss and a sultry “Get in here.”

The tub was a little small and it took a moment to arrange the two of us to be able to sit comfortably. Little playful kisses snatched as we got in, water splashing out while we arranged ourselves. 

I got Dan kneeling with his back to me while I washed his hair and scrubbed his back, gentle of all the bruising along his shoulder and sides. Carefully combing shampoo and conditioner that we had found under the sink into his hair, getting out scabbed bits of blood still clinging to it, the cut almost healed on his scalp would leave a scar but one that would be barely noticeable assuming he kept his wild mane.

Standing and switching places so he could do the same for me, it went from being sweet and romantic, to a little gross with how grey the soapy water actually got, but it was hot, clean, Dan worked gently on all the sore muscles along my neck and back, careful of any flinching I gave when he touched too close to the bruises I still had from the crash, healing but not quite gone.

Draining the tub and re-filling the second bath was more relaxing.

An awkward dance of limbs before we were positioned comfortably, my back against his chest, his long legs sticking out of the tub, feet braced up against the wall or hanging off the side.   
My fingertips trailed along his thighs, tickling at his knees while one of his arms rested on the lip of the tub, the other under the water around my waist, splayed out over my stomach, fingers wriggling whenever I got him to punish me back for the tickles.  
Turning my head I reached to pet his scruffy face, getting him to nip at my fingers.

“I wonder if there’s a razor in here.” He idly mumbled in a sleepy sounding voice, the hot water sapping his energy in the best of ways.  
“Mmm but the scruff is so manly~” I rubbed my hands against it enjoying the light prickle scratching my palms. It was passing out of the overgrown stubble phase into a full soft beard, little flecks of distinguished grey’s peppered in that I thought were very hansom. 

“You really think so?” Dan asked pulling me up higher against him so he could rub his face into my neck making me giggle and squirm. 

One arm wrapped around my waist his free hand cupped my breast, fingers slowed as they trailed over my skin, squeezing over soft curves, caressing hard muscles, and sharp bones. He hadn’t known me before all this, hadn’t seen my body before, I had obviously lost a lot of weight, near starving, pushing my exhausted body to the limit. I didn’t know how I felt about it, my skin felt too loose, too soft, too hard. 

But Dan obviously enjoyed touching me, gentle kisses over my neck and shoulders, rough whispers of how beautiful I was, how good I felt. 

The hardness pressed to my back.

He was in no rush, happy to play with my breasts and drink water drops off my skin, tease me when I squirmed against him.

My head tipped back against his shoulder I moaned, finally begging him with a soft “please” one hand at the back of his neck, pulling at his hair, the other taking hold of his wrist to the hand that had wandered between my thighs and was torturously caressing every inch of skin except the area I desperately wanted him to.   
“Show me what you want baby~” He purred letting me guide him to what I needed.

Not that Dan needed much guidance, his mouth and teeth lightly nipped and sucked at my exposed neck, licking at the water and sweat there, pinching, groping at my breast to make me arch, his fingers dancing, teasing and twisting me to moans, to soft sight, to sweet begging.

I came undone faster than I’d ever had in my life, shocked with how fast he got me there and how intense it was. Dan hummed, obviously pleased with his work, raising his fingers to his mouth, sucking them off while giving me a look, making my face burn but also making me clench because there was something so hot about that.

Twisting around to face him I kneeled between his open legs, leaning forward to kiss him, one hand bracing myself against the lip of the tub by his shoulder, the other moving down his chest into the warm water to touch him.

Dan moaned in my mouth, placing his hand over mine, guiding you to what he wanted, keeping me slower than I expected, surprising me when instead of just taking what I wanted to give, his free hand moved back between my legs flicking in quick circles over my clit, faster than what he was letting me do to him, building me back up until my forehead was resting against his shoulder, panting and shivering, hips slowly rocking into his hand. 

Even keeping me slow I could feel his dick constantly twitching, the way he whimpered and gasped soft “Not yet” not allowing me to jerk him off any faster, not until I was right back on that edge with him, with little whimpers and moans. “Fuck Danny I’m so close.”  
“Fuck baby please, please-“

He squeezed my hand around him and I could feel his dick throb, hearing his low groan and feeling him come undone was enough that pulled me off the edge with him, biting his neck to muffle my own cries.

The sound of our breath echoed lightly in the quiet bathroom, Dan giggling out a “holy shit” and then laughing hard when I sat back, reaching out he wiped cum that that shot up high enough to hit your chin off of me, I made a horrified face but laughed as well.

It might have been a “wasted day” bathing until we were prunes, cuddling and reading to him until the light went down, settling into a full soft bed with him learning his body until it was as familiar as my own. 

We were warm, safe, full.

And maybe ready to hope again.

———

New Years was a sad affair. 

A few close friends had come over to Arin’s, not to celebrate anything but to simply be there, to hope, to pray in their own private ways.

News was getting harder to find about the crash as it was fading from peoples minds, other stories getting covered instead, but for them there was nothing else more pressing.

12 people had survived of the 126 souls on that flight.

Since the last 2 found and rescued, 5 more were also found alive, but had died due to their injuries shortly after.

Dan’s family confirmed that none of them had been him, but the longer he was gone, the few passengers unaccounted for was getting smaller, and tales of what happened to them were getting grimmer.

Bodies found, dragged away from the crash site by animals. People who had wandered away and found their deaths in the snow. News of a camper being found at at an old shut down dam a few miles away from the crash site, not related to the crash the body had been chewed and decomposed beyond recognition but there was mention of a fire and a wolf that had made the place into its den. The fire was fresh and no one was sure if it was one of the survivors, the drug runners in the area, or someone else.

But it kept Arin hoping, and kept the search for the survivors, or the drug cartel in the area going.

The search teams kept expanding outward, now needing to clear the rail line on the other side of the dam that had been damaged but taking their time with it, there needed to be a careful investigation of the train that had been nearly knocked off the tracks by an unexpected avalanche since there was nothing that was supposed to be running in that area at the time.  
On top of that the ravine was dangerous, one slip and the rescuers would be gone.

No one really wanted to say it, that after this much time maybe Dan wasn’t coming home, as each day crawled into the next the new reality of a world without Dan Avidan in it was becoming more solid.

As the beginning of a new year started for everyone else, Arin began to softly broach the idea with Suzy and Brent, soft, quiet meetings with everyone of what to do with the Grumps san’s their “Not-so-Grump” member.

Hope was a fluttering candle for all of them, slowly reaching the end of its wick.


	16. The Town (Day 20)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited October 25 2017  
> (I'm actually thinking of re-editing everything again to put it into a third person and give our reader a name. Eh maybe not idk)

——  
Day 20  
——

I awoke in bed.

In a real bed, actually warm, wrapped up in a man who smelled nice.

It would have been a dream if it wasn’t just a moment of reprieve in the middle of a horrific nightmare.

“Good Morning Starshine~” Dan sang at me, already awake and playing with my hair, clean and smooth and soft.   
The bathroom had a brush and it was a little hokey for even me but after we were done with our bath and had eaten and dried off Dan had brushed my hair for me. Not like it was so long that I needed help, but while he sat on the sofa I planted myself between his legs and there was something calming about the feel of someone doing that for me. I felt weirdly safe, loved, and it had a strange nostalgic feeling that made my chest ache.

Relaxing in the tub until we were both beyond the level of pink raisins, preening in the warm misty bathroom with found lotions, and toothpastes, relaxing back at the fire with soup and crackers.

I felt more like a whole person today then I’d felt in a long time.  
Maybe even before the crash.

It wasn’t like I was completely ignorant of where we were and what was happening. Even during the bath, or for the rest of the day after I would get a little twitchy, my brain buzzing, what if, what if, what if we missed the person in the car? What if that was our last chance at rescue?

But a kiss from Dan, a roasted marshmallow on the fire, another glass of wine, a soft touch, all those thoughts would float away.

We needed this. 

What was the use of rescue if we were shallow husks of our former selves hopeless and crushed, without reprieves like this would we even make it to rescue?

We already almost hadn’t more than once.

I felt lighter this morning, barely clothed and yet not freezing, my stomach still full from the night before, my aching body a dull throb instead of the stiff death I’d been suffering. The cabin was good, there was a supply of wood outside already, we had food, and we knew somewhere, around us, there was a person, maybe more than one, and rescue had to be on it’s way if not for us then at least for them which meant it was coming.

We were safe, and secure, and soon-

Soon we would be home.

Rolling over I straddled Dan’s hips leaning over him to get a deep morning kiss, humming encouragingly as his hands crawled up my legs.

We would go out today, we would find people, we would go home.

I buried myself in Dan’s warmth, letting my hopeful fantasy continue.

—

I hated the cold in general, and I seemed to feel even more loathing every time we had to leave a heated building.

Back outside, backpacks almost empty just the hatchet, and crowbar with us, we’d decided to head out and search around our cabin, see what we could see, leave a message at the car if we could, check out the area, and if we were really lucky, find the owner of that car and get out of here.

We walked back the way we came, to the highway where it split, the one side we were on, our tracks from the day before still the only features cut into the deep snow. The cleared highway itself seemed unchanged, flecks of snow dancing across in the wind, leaping off the tall snowbanks on the side.

“I see rooftops.” Dan commented having a good foot on me, able to see better over the snow. 

What he saw was a small… I couldn’t really call it a town, glorified truck stop? 

Three houses up the road we were standing across from, but more importantly the first turn off the highway immediately lead to a gas station-garage, where there were fresh tire prints in the snow leading to it.

Dan had been looking up, but I had been looking down, giving his arm a smack and pointing to them. We still, oddly, looked both ways before running out into the street to follow the double set of tracks leading to the large garage doors. 

I was too short to see inside, hopping and getting nothing while Dan stood on his toes and was able to see into the window of the large garage door where the tire tracks lead.

“There’s the car from the crash.” He said, “No tow-truck.”

“Probably what they drove out of here in then.” Looking down my thoughts were somewhat confirmed as a single car set of tracks did exit the garage and went in the other direction to the opposite exit of the gas station parking lot.

I wandered to the front of the station, Dan trailing behind me. The windows of the station had their blinds pulled, the door was just a sheet of glass and pushing on it showed it was smartly locked. No footprints were out here beyond our own so whomever visited here last were the last people in a while.

Dan grunted, making me look at him and then to the sign to the side of the door he was looking at.

‘Winter Hours in effect: Call if you need gas, we can be here within an hour. Gastanks are locked, store doesn’t have any money inside.’

Good news: There were people here, and close by.  
Bad news: We didn’t have a phone.

“BBbbbbaaaaaaallllllllssssssss” I groaned Dan letting out a sharp “Fuck” before me.

“Okay so, what do you wanna do?” I asked after we’d stood there thinking long enough.  
“Guess we can just leave a note, let them know where we are, and then keep coming back to check?”  
“Yeah, there was some tape in the kitchen drawer I think? Maybe we can slip a note under the door too.”

Back we went to the house, finding some packing tape and using paper from Dan’s notebook;  
‘We are two of the passengers from the flight that went down’

“Do you remember our flight number?”  
“No… But how many flights could have gone down recently in this area?”

‘We are located at the cabin on the lake by the dock across the street from here.’

I drew a little map just so they would be sure of where we were talking about.

‘We have food for now but no phone, no electricity, and we need help. Please come rescue us.’

Names signed we copied the note a few extra times not wanting to take the chance that it would be missed.

Out again we went to the house across the street from us, it was empty and abandoned but we slapped a note into their mailbox anyway, if someone stopped by we wanted them to know. The gas station was next, taping a note to the front door, one to the garage, going to the back and taping one to the employee exit as well and even stomping a “HELP” in the snow in the back parking lot.

Heading further up the street to the other houses we knocked on their doors and peeked in the windows. One looked to be the office for the logging or train company, a building that was perfectly rectangular it was probably a trailer home, filled only with desks inside. 

The one next to it was most likely housing for those very same people, similar to the trailers we’d found before with bunks, little privacy, port-a-potties to the back.

Not exactly high luxury for the poor workers.

An actual house was a little beyond that, maybe the summer home of the owners of the logging company, it was a nice 2 story building, but empty inside. The furniture we could see through the windows had sheets over it to keep the dust off while the owners were away.

No cars or other footprints marked the houses or roads that lead to them, so while we left notes taped to every door I didn’t have much hope that someone would notice them anytime soon. 

The gas station was our only hope around here.

We stood around the station for far too long, until we were hungry and our teeth were clicking together uncontrollably, hoping against hope that any moment now the owners would come back. But we finally had to give up and head back indoors to get warm again.

Pulling out something from the pantry to eat I looked at the supplies we had, biting my lip in thought.

“Men should have like 2000 calories per day on average right? And women 1500?” I asked when Dan came back into the house going out to grab some more wood to dry overnight so it was available in the morning.

“No idea, never was into that kinda dieting shit. Why?”  
“Well I was just kind of thinking- I mean like, basically this soup has like 200 calories and well, I was into that dieting shit so I know a cup of rice has also like 200 calories and we’ve only got these little packets. So I was thinking, assuming we need to pull about 4000 calories per day each to stop losing weight and maintain where we are now the food we have will last about… Okay give me a second.” Dan hovered while I did the math doing rough estimates of how many calories were in the food we had and dividing it between the two of us.  
He wandered away before I was done but I wanted to know exactly how long we had to idle here. The gas station was our best bet at rescue but the owners of the station lived /somewhere/ in the vicinity of roughly an hour away by car. On a highway an hour in a car could be over 100km, or for us two to three days worth of walking. So even if we gave up and tried to find the owners on our own, we might not be able to.

I want into the living room “We have about 5 days if we start being careful. Not including today.”

It took Dan a brief moment to remember what I was talking about, his eyes widening.  
“Seriously?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Fuck.”  
“Yeah. I mean we can go on like starvation rations and maybe get 10 days but- yeah I’m already doing these calculations based on basic dietary needs.” 

I gave a long sigh to that, being able to eat without thinking about it and eat until my belly was finally full yesterday had been really nice, going back to watered down soups and always feeling that gnawing in my gut wasn’t really appealing but we’d have to do that just to make the full 5 days if someone never came.

Wandering over to the sofa I pushed myself into Dan’s lap.  
“So what are you thinking?”  
“Well, we’ve got time to think about some options. Gas stations always have food, it’ll be gas station food so not exactly healthy. And I don’t exactly want to break in there if we don’t have to.”  
“Don’t wanna bite the hand that might save us?”  
“Yeah, if we hit the fishing huts and get lucky we could stretch things by a few days but I’m worried the people from the gas station could miss us then. What if someone stops at the station, or drives past, and thinks we’ve already been picked up because we’re not home? Or drives by to fix the telephone pole and we don’t hear them because we’re out on the lake?”

Dan nodded, thinking about the dilemma himself, pulling me back with him to lay on him on the sofa, his hand crawling up my back to scratch at the back of my head, he could probably tell I was getting a little worked up worrying about all this.

“We could.” He said speaking slowly, thinking his plan out loud. “Put some snow on the highway, like a few road bumps and then a pile of it high enough that someone would want to stop to check it out.”  
“Wouldn’t that be dangerous?”

He made a ‘maybe’ noise.   
“Maybe not so thick that it would cause someone to really crash or not so much that it blocks the whole road, but enough that it would make someone do a double take? Like a snowman in the middle of the street, stick a jacket on it so it’s noticeable”  
“It sounds like an idea-”  
“I hear that but.” He smacked his hand onto my butt to emphasize his point and get a little squeal out of me.  
“Asshole,” I bit him through his shirt. “It’s nothing.”  
“No, let it out babe.”  
I groaned “I don’t wanna a debbie downer, but ok so, how long do you want to wait for?”

His breath caught and he let out a sigh too, his hands sliding off my rear to rest on my back around my waist. 

“I know, I don’t want to think about it either but if they do miss us, it’s a big cold place out there, they might not come back for a long time, the repair people for the telephone pole might come from the other direction on the highway and never get this far, so how long do we want to wait?”

“I dunno.” Dan mumbled thinking for long enough that I laid my head on his chest almost ready to drop it. “Lets play it a little by ear? So we can pack maybe two days of stuff in our bags. So like if someone comes, then we’re ready to go and we’ve got some snacks for the road, but if someone doesn’t come then we just get up and go.”

I nodded…

“I can hear that big ol’ butt again.” His hands squeezed my ass once more, even after all this I did still have a pretty plush rump although it was probably firmer now than it had ever been before.

“What about the weather?”  
He let out a frustrated groan not wanting to think about it but since I was bringing it up he would.  
“Ok how about, we pack away two days worth of food and set aside a third.” I offered “We can go check the store in the morning, set up the snowman on the side of the road, then do some fishing. Check the store again before it gets too dark, rinse and repeat until we hit the third day of supplies and then if the weather is good, we go, if it’s bad, we eat half and hope for a good day. If it stays bad and we burn through all the held stuff, we hit the store one last time, leave an apology letter and steal like three days of food if they have it, and then hoof it down the highway and hopefully find the shop owners or someone who didn’t decide to leave this frozen tit of a land.”

Dan snorted at my ending, “It’s your country.”  
“Fuck this the health care’s not worth it, I’m moving to South Africa after this bullshit if I never see snow again it’ll be too fucking soon.”

It helped break the dour mood, Dan being able to smile over my loathing of Canadian weather.

“Okay, it sounds like a plan, bright and early at the buttcrack of dawn~”

His hands slapped down hard on my ass closing my ability to speak further on the topic since now I had to throw the lanky jerkwad into a snowbank.


	17. The Rescue (Day 21 and 22)

———  
DAY 21   
———

“Hey there lumberjack~” I whistled at Dan finally following him outside.  
We were going to be a bit busy today, with a two day window to essentially either gather enough to stay a little longer, or be prepared to leave by the end, our days of laying around doing not much were completely over.  
While I organized one of our packs, setting it by the door with two days of food for the both of us, ready to go. The second I left empty bringing it out with us in case we found something to bring back with us. Hooking the crowbar into my belt loop in case we would need it I’d felt that we were about as ready as we needed to be when it was time to go and went outside to join Dan.

Dan had gone out already with the hatchet before me, making sure the supply of wood we did have would last not only the time we knew we were staying for, but any bonus time we got as well.

Leaning against a tree I bit my lip waggling my eyebrows and giving him a look even going so far as to fan myself at the sight of him. Not that he didn’t look good right now, he’d taken off his jacket, a little dangerous in this weather, but he’d worked up a heat cutting low hanging branches to bring inside that hopefully would dry out enough to burn if we needed them.   
Wiping his brow he looked up at me, grinning while I teased him.

“Golly those are some big, /thick/, pieces of wood there, you need help?”

He giggled, clearing his throat dropping his voice into one of smooth seduction that was a little hard for him to keep up considering how he wasn’t able to quite keep a straight face.   
“I dunno lil’ lady, they’re awfully /hard/, but I’m not one to turn down a helping hand…job.”  
“Give me your load, hot stuff, I can take it.” I laughed back, helping him pick up the wood he’d cut, wanting to get it inside and head out already. 

Crossing the street once more it didn’t seem like there were any new tracks beyond our own, so it didn’t take long for Dan to look back into the windows of the garage and confirm that nothing had moved, no one had been there yet.   
Building the snowman was much harder.  
The snow was dry on top and frozen into solid chunks underneath so getting a solid ball of it was essentially impossible. We broke off chunks of snow instead and built a low wall across the highway, more of a series of speed-bumps, nothing that would damage a car, but maybe convince them to slow down.

Hopefully slow down enough to see the “Plz Help” chipped into the snowbank on either side with an arrow pointed towards the cabin we’d bunkered down in. 

We stopped back at the house then, needing to warm up our cold wet fingers, and shared a lunch. Knowing that our food was on a limited timer we were both eating less than we most likely wanted to, less than I’d calculated we could for today and tomorrow. Without talking about it, we seemed to be on the same page of generally wanting to be able to stay, wanting to stretch out our resources so that we could safely wait here until someone came back. 

It was almost worse being here than at the cabin in the middle of nowhere on the mysterious lake. Out there rescue was out of sight, something we hoped for but as days passed we knew was not coming. Here rescue was fluttering around us, always one step ahead, it was infuriating that we kept missing it. Knowing someone else was out here, with a car, maybe with a phone, obviously with the ability to live out here for the winter, I knew I didn’t really want to leave because at any moment they could come back, come to find us, and if we’d left we’d be fucking ourselves over far more from this position than we had been leaving the other lakeside cabin. Getting back outside I wasn’t sure if we’d get much by the way of fish today, the sun on it’s downward decent as we stepped out cautiously onto the ice. 

There were two fishing huts not that far from one another off the dock, far enough out onto the ice that it made us a little nervous about heading out there, carefully making our way, cautiously feeling out each step listening for any cracks or warning groans. Keeping a few steps away from one another so if one went down, the other would hopefully be able to pull them out.

Or be pulled in as well.

Even though he was taller than me I had a feeling that I probably weighed the same, if not more than Dan even now, so I didn’t want to stress the ice by being too close.

Thankfully it was solid all the way out. 

Making it to the closest hut I started the fire in the little stove, a very small almost oval one, more like a tiny barbecue instead of the potbellied stove from the huts on the other lake, while Dan started working on chipping a hole into the ice.

“Ugh… This is gonna be a bit smokier.” I warned Dan, the stove was a bit too small for the wood we’d brought, and the pipe was oddly set so that it would allow you to grill the fish as you caught them on top of the fire and hopefully the smoke would waft out the hanging pipe above.

Luckily the hut had a window to the side so I wasn’t worried about suffocating, we’d just be extra smelly after being out here for a day.

But if anyone was passing they’d see the smoke.

Dan switched off with the hatchet, cutting the wood we’d brought so it would fit into the stove better while I started chipping at the ice with the crowbar. We took turns beating at the ground to finally smash a hole through, very confident now in the safety of the thickness of the ice, at least this far out considering how long it took to get through it.

“You see if you can get lucky.” I huffed, swapping places with Dan once last time while he cleaned up the hole with the hatchet. “I’m gonna pop back over to the station, see if anyone stopped in, maybe bring out a few more sticks for tomorrow kay?”

Looking up he gave me a look that clearly said he didn’t want me to go, but as dangerous as it could be out here, wasting time was just as deadly.

“Okay, grab a cup and a candle too please, just in case it gets dark when we head back in.”

I gave him a thumbs up, picking up the backpack and heading back out, the light was already starting to dim. Sliding over the ice as quick as I dared following our tracks back not wanting to take any chances with discovering the ONE weak point with a fresh step, I hit the shore and booked it to the shop.

I peaked across the road, not even taking the full trip, just looking to see if there were any new tracks in front of the store and seeing nothing different, turning around and heading back to the cabin. 

With a pocket of tea-lights in a clear cup to protect them from the wind I made my way back to the ice, the sun midway below the mountains casting the sky in a deepening pastel pink fading into the purple black of the night.

Stopping at the shoreline to find our exact tracks to head back over the ice again I did notice in the corner of my eye a bush that I hadn’t payed attention to before, little lumpy brownish-red berries catching my attention. 

It was a wild rosebush.

Normally botany didn’t entirely interest me so it was something I’d ignore, but now bushes and tree’s were all important sources of fuel and little finds like this might be a line between life and death.

I didn’t want to cross the lake in the pitch black so I left them for now, heading back to get Dan first.

“Hey-“  
I was cut off by Dan shushing me, the look of intense concentration on his face while he delicately wiggled his line was the only thing that kept me from giving him a boot to the head.

Softly moving around him I opened the stove to light a twig on fire to start two of the candles going, the hut already dark inside. 

Dan was gently muttering to the hole, soft pleading “come on baby you know you want it” making a high pitched sound when the line jerked and he pulled up a fish.

It was just a tiny thing, barely the size of my palm and certainly not enough for any sort of a meal for two people.

But it was a good sign.

“Hopefully there are some bigger ones down there.”  
“Yeah, tomorrow’ll be better.” Dan said with confidence carefully removing the hook from the wriggling things mouth and gently stepping on the fish’s head to put it out of it’s misery. “Nothin?”  
“Yeah, but I saw a wild rose bush on the way over, we should pick some of the buds when we can.”

I could see the gears turning in Dan’s head before he was on the same page as me, I knew with hair like that and the way he rolled a joint that there was more hippy in him than he’d admit to so he knew.  
“Vitamin C in rose-hip tea…” He said getting to the idea that I had in regard to the plant, a strange look crossing his face as he paused, realizing that what he said rhymed. “Uhh… something something it’s snowing on mount fuji.”  
“Nice try but your rhyming scheme is off.”  
“IT’S FREE VERSE THANKYOUVERYMUCH! And you call yourself an English teacher!”

Huffing with a laugh he took his candle following me out, gathering rose hips by the moonlight and eating a few bites of grilled fish and rice with our sour brew that would hopefully keep us healthy or at least keep scurvy at bay.

Tomorrow we’d have better luck.

———  
DAY 22  
———

I knew somewhere in the back of my head in a few months, or a few years that I’d get used to regular life again.   
That no matter what I thought now, eventually in the middle of summer I would let slip a complaint about the heat and wish for a cooler day.

But in this moment I whole heartedly felt that I would never again feel too hot, there was no such thing, four blankets would always be on my bed, Dan would always be there breathing hotly on my neck, and when I died I wanted a viking funeral pier, set forever ablaze, eternally warm.

The old woman spinster who had been single long enough to know, knew that relationships were hard, took work, and the feelings I had now would change, evolve for the better or worse. But the romantic in me basked now, feeling I’d never get sick of Dan’s whiskery lips peppering lazy kisses on my shoulders, that if I could wake up every day just like this, maybe things would be okay.

As long as Dan was with me, the cold and dark wouldn’t be able to touch me.

With a grunt Dan pressed himself against me, squeezing me tight against his body while he stretched out, curling back up like an added blanket to my backside.

Or a horny leech considering what was also pressing against me.

“Yes, good morning may I help you?” I asked in a mock grumble as though he’d awaken me with his suggestive wriggling.  
“Do we have to get up?” He whined nibbling more on my shoulder, pulling at the material of my shirt with his teeth, his fingers making their way up the front of my shirt.

“We’ll it’s not like we’re on any kind of tight schedule for today—“ I had to cut off his happy little ‘yay’ with a “—But we do need to go fishing. If we can’t catch anything today then tomorrow we’ll have to consider heading out if the weather is good.”

I further interrupted his grumbling whining, “Cus who knows what the weather will be like for the rest of the season, anytime it’s nice we really gotta get shit done just in case the weather turns to hell and we’re stuck inside for weeks on end.”  
“Can that happen?”  
“Unfortunately, yes. I mean I’ve never lived this far up north but, if we are where I think we are I’ve heard stories of people snowed in for weeks on end.”  
“Uuuugggghhhhhh fffiiiiiinnnee just… Five more minutes?” He begged one arm around my waist to keep me there with him, his other hand already fully up my shirt fondling my tits.

“I dunno~” I teased turning my head to get some of those whiskery kisses. “Whadda I get if we stay here five more minutes?”  
“Oh I’m sure I can think of something.” Rolling between my legs he gave me a few reasons to stay in bed even longer than five minutes.

-

Getting to the store later that day I didn’t really think anything of it at first when the sign was no longer on the front window. Pasted outside, with the snow and wind, it probably had fallen off so at a distance I didn’t get excited until we got closer and noticed the series of fresh tire prints in the snow. 

Someone had pulled up to the gas pumps and into the garage. 

Dan jogged ahead of me, his longer legs getting there before I could and allowing him to look into the garage windows whereas trying was a futile act on my part.

“What?”  
“Car’s gone.” His voice was quiet.

Something bubbled in me, but I wasn’t sure what yet. Someone had been here, someone… was here?

Rushing to the front of the store I pushed on the door, still locked, looking inside seeing no sign of life even as I knocked against the glass yelling.

“Maybe they’re in the back.” I offered as Dan approached me slowly, looking like he was in a haze. Racing around the building Dan following behind at his own pace, I could see more footprints there than our own left from before.   
Someone had gone to the trouble of going in the employee exit, the tire tracks were in the back, fresh footprints leading to the door, the snow scraped back so the door could open.

but…

Banging on the door, the “Hey-“ died in my throat as I took a step back finally taking in what was happening.

The tape was there, a scrap of the paper, but our note was gone.

Confusion, realization, cold, and then… Worry.

Less worried about myself and more worried about Dan.

He’d gone completely quiet as got to the door after me, a few slams with his fist staring at the point where our sign had been, slowly coming to the same conclusion that I was at.

That someone had been by, someone had looked at our pleas for rescue, and then—  
Ignored them.

“I…” He backed up from the door, his jaw set, finally grinding out, “I need a minute,” walking away.

I counted to 50, confused and leaning my head against the shop door, a thousand questions in my head most of them being a loop screaming of “What the FUCK?” 

Breathing deep counting again to 50, maybe 100, I just tried to breath, finding that numb cold place, looking down and seeing the crumpled note in the snow I started kicking at the door, slamming against it with my booted heel, glad Dan wasn’t here to see me violently losing it, spitting and cursing at the door my mind blank with anything except a red haze of rage.

And fear.

I froze, hearing a loud crashing sound of glass breaking, scared shitless for a moment that I’d been wrong about people leaving, and was about to get in some serious trouble.

It was a familiar screaming that got me running.

Racing around the building Dan had apparently gone back to the house, grabbed the crowbar, walked back here, and was now smashing the front window of the shop open.

Partially for necessity I knew, after all there were probably supplies in there that we would need, but I could recognize it was mostly out of anger, especially since he was attacking all the windows, stopping when I rounded the corner his hands shaking as he realized what he was doing, throwing the crowbar at the door and started yelling at me, tears already streaking down his face.

“Why? Why would someone do this? They know, THEY FUCKING KNOW we’re here! What the /FUCK/ IS WRONG WITH THEM?!”

I moved forward quickly, grabbing hold of him worried he was going to hurt himself as he started grabbing at his hair roughly, letting him instead dig his fingers into me, going down and rocking him as he sank to the ground in my arms crying bitter and angry tears.

Someone was out there now, literally taunting the two of us with salvation, only to refuse to give it to us.

It confounded me just as much as him.

How could someone be so cruel?

It scared me too.

Who would do this? What was happening in the world that someone would read our plight, see our begging desperation, and decide to leave us out here to die?   
What kind of psychopath was this stuck out in the woods and wild with us?

It scared me to think of it. 

Dan stopped crying like something in him had been cut off, although he was pulling away, sniffing wetly and wiping at his face I could tell he was not okay.

“Dan?” I questioned as he got up looking around almost as though he didn’t know where he was, his brow furrowed and jaw set. “Dan?!” I got to my feet, calling louder to him when he started walking away. 

“I can’t. I can’t. I just- I can’t.” He let out a weird titter of a laugh shaking his head backing away from me. “Um wow I just… Holy shit.”

“Dan, please… It’ll be-“  
“Mmmm!!” He took an almost threatening step towards me, his hands up as though to silence me forcefully but he didn’t touch me. “Don’t! Don’t- don’t. Not right now okay? I really just-“   
Letting out a long breath he backed up again. “I need to go. I will be back. I promise, I will be back. I just really. Really. Need to be alone right now okay?”

“Dan, please.” I didn’t know what to say, it didn’t matter, he turned on his heel getting as far away from me as fast as he could. 

I sank back onto the ground and sat there.

When had they come? Had I missed them the night before? I’d only looked over the corner, could they have been in the shop as I’d done that? Debating how to deal with us and deciding that we weren’t worth it without giving us a chance to argue our case? Were they there that morning? Had they stopped at the house and heard our laughter? my pleasure? Were we in a quiet moment or a loud one of distraction and they’d seen our pleas as a joke?

/this is your fault/

I darkly blamed myself looking up just as Dan rounded a hill of snow onto the highway knowing that he was thinking the same thing. He blamed me, he must blame me, it’s all my fault. The day we took the bath and missed them, this morning, god knew it was my plan to leave the original cabin and the rescue had probably come there already, my stupid plans, all my fault, everything was my fault. 

I was cursed and Dan was paying the price for it.

Dark thoughts clouded my mind, sick horrific things.

/slam your head down onto the glass, you’ll hardly feel it before you bleed out./  
/crawl into the hole on the lake, it’ll at least attract the fish for Dan/

/He’d last six days on our current supplies if I wasn’t here./

I didn’t even have to do anything. I could just lay here in the snow, it was cold enough, just go to sleep and all this would be over.

Getting up I wandered back to the cabin, burning my fingers putting some extra wood onto the fire, curling up in front of it.

Maybe one day I would be able to complain about the heat.

But right now I felt like I would never be warm again.

__

Even though we kept telling ourselves it wasn’t coming, there was, always out there, that tiny sliver of hope that someone really was coming to save us. That possibility on the horizon of knowing that maybe we’d missed rescue the first time, but we’d catch it the next…

That faith in humanity, that people were looking for us, that someone would help.

That someone in fact had come.   
Had seen us.  
And then spat in our faces?

It killed something in us both.

I partially woke up when I heard the door close, Dan keeping his promise to return, stomping off his boots before taking them off, moving around me, puttering around the house, returning to put another log on the shrinking fire before finally he sat down next to me.

He was quiet for a long time, watching the fire, I’d drifted again, falling partially back to sleep, feeling his fingers finally make their way into my hair, cold fingertips against my neck, feeling my pulse.

“You awake?”

I gave a sleepy hum, letting my eyes open but looking at the fire, not ready to get up yet. Feeling a little scared of what he wanted, if he’d finally realized that he hated me.

I could tell from the shadows in the room now it was nearly dark, I’d slept the day away but I was still so tired.

“I’m sorry.” I whispered, the quiet making me feel anxious, desperate for this feeling to go away even if it meant something worse.  
“Me too.” He sighed crawling to lay with me, taking my place blocking me from the fire, stealing my heat for himself. 

He needed it, he felt ice cold.

His hand crawled up my back under my shirt making me shiver and cling closer to him.

“Scratches?” I asked feeling like I was forgiven, those dark thoughts that had been plaguing me the whole day getting shed while he dug short nails into my dry skin.

“Higher, harder. Harder.” I directed his fingers until it hurt but I wanted that pain, finding it more relieving than anything else, it made the disappointing ache in my chest feel less.

“I found condoms, you wanna fuck?”

His voice was so lacklustre and dull, like he was offering me a drink of water out of polite civility not actual caring of my condition.   
But it echoed exactly how I was feeling too.

Burnt out. 

We were hollow shells needing to be filled with anything we could find to keep the darkness at bay.

And no matter how much I blamed myself, how much he might have blamed me, all we had in this world right now was each other.

Tilting my head up, letting Dan bite against my neck, I only hoped I could be enough to keep him going, because if I lost him…

There was an underlaying gentleness in him even through the rough way he clung to me, more teeth and nails that I didn’t mind, asking for him to go harder, wanting the pain.

He tried, desperately he tried, hoping to lose himself in a mindless passion that just wasn’t there.   
I tried too, but the playful pleasure we’d found before was gone, my body was barely reacting and neither was his. He was barely in me when he gave up, his forehead on my chest, fingers digging into my back as he pulled me into his arms, crushing me too tight against his shaking body.  
“Fuck I’m sorry, oh god I am so sorry.” He choked on the words his voice tight, hot tears dripping onto me as he babbled apologies. “Please don’t leave me, I am so sorry please- please god- please don’t leave me.”

I held him then while he cried, gently rubbing along his shaking shoulders, petting his hair murmuring soft ’it’s okay’s’ to his rambling whimpers of apology and fearful pleas of not wanting to be alone, not wanting to die. Holding him together physically and mentally while he broke down feeling my own eyes start to burn as I cried too feeling so alone even with him there in my arms.

I wanted to die.  
I wanted to live.

We just wanted to wake up from this nightmare.

Rolling him off me and onto our side he finally calmed down, even starting to kiss the valley between my breasts shifting down like he wanted to do more but I didn’t want it anymore than he did.

“No.” I tugged at his hair bringing him back up, wrapping my arms around him, wanting to just stay a naked tangle of limbs but needing nothing more than that.

“No?”  
“Just this.” I rubbed at his wet cheek getting a sad half smile, his eyes looking away before he gave an odd giggle mumbling about being ‘the most sensitive man on God's green earth.’ humming a tune I didn’t recognize and made me worry a little about his sanity.

And yet his smile then looked lost, but less forced, less dull.  
We were long from being fixed, certainly not okay, still hollow but less of a burnt house and more of an empty cup waiting to be filled again.

With a soft kiss Dan coaxed me off the floor, leading me to bed, between the cool sheets our warm hands wandered over skin, no desire for sex, just needing to feel that the other was there. Broken further than we could ever imagine, on the edge of sanity, we talked, addressing things that we would never talk about with anyone else.

“Do you want to die?” I asked him simply, echoing the thoughts that had been running through my head all day. 

His mouth opened, instinct to deny it but teeth clicking shut I could see Dan think about it because clearly on his long walk in the cold, he had been.

“I don’t know.” He finally answered. “Do you?”  
“I don’t know.” I repeated back. “I’m just tired.”  
“Me too.”  
“It would be easy.”  
“I know… But I’m scared.”  
“Me too.”

“Please don’t leave me.” His voice was small, childlike, back on the verge of tears.  
“I won’t. We’re in this together remember?” I echoed back words said what felt like so long ago, at another breaking point that seemed like nothing compared to where we were now.

"When the plane went down," I started feeling Dan tense.

Neither of us had spoken directly about the crash itself, not wanting to relive that horror, not having the time or mental ability to really consider why it happened. “The engines just stopped didn’t they?”

Dan thought about it and nodded.

“That would take something like an EMP to do right?”  
“I don’t… Know what that is.”  
“Electro-magnetic-pulse, like I read somewhere that if a nuke explodes than there’s like an EMP shockwave which could have taken down the plane?”

I could almost hear the gears turning in Dan’s head.

“You think someone dropped a nuke on Canada?”  
“Well I think like during the cold war Canada had some military stuff put in for the USA in case Russia ever shot a nuke, since it’d travel faster over the north pole from over Canada than across the ocean so yeah, maybe someone shot a missile and it got shot down and the blast EMP took down the plane.” 

“What are you getting at?”

“I- I guess I’m trying to figure out WHY rescue never came? WHY there was so much damage? WHY that shop owner would have seen our notes and just thrown them away? Like what if Canada and the USA are at war? What if that EMP took everything out and the shop owner is like, just trying to get out of here as fast as he can and it’s already starting to fall into some dog-eat-dog fucking… The walking dead post-apocalyptic nightmare everywhere else and that’s what’s going on?”

Dan was quiet while I kept talking in little spurts, letting ideas just flow out of my head.  
“What if rescues not coming because there’s no one out there TO rescue us… No one left, or nothing to be brought back to that’s any better than this? Like I can believe rescue taking a day or two but we were out there for what? Like two weeks before we left? There were no helicopters, no other planes have flown over. What is happening out there?”

I stopped, waiting for confirmation or at least dismissal of my conspiracy theories. World politics were forever a tenuous thing at best, it didn’t take much to set of a chain reaction that could spiral out of control, maybe we were the first link in that chain, the Franz Ferdinand that would spiral the rest of the world out of control.

Finally he spoke, “This EMP, or these missiles would like affect the north part of the USA first wouldn’t they? Like they’d target big cities?”  
“I would guess so? I mean it makes sense to hit all major metropolitan areas first.”

He went quiet again, slowly squeezing me closer I could his fingers drumming a nervous beat on my back.

“We have to get out of here.” His voice held a conviction that I hadn’t heard in it before, one that spurred a different kind of hope in me. “We have to.”

It was crazy, but we were far from sane any longer.

We talked deep into the night, the decision fermenting in our heads that we would not die, would not go quietly into that long night.  
Not for our own sake, but for our families.  
If this thing that had hit us were just us maybe we could accept our own fates, friends and family would mourn but life would go on.

But we would not accept that they were in danger and sit idly by and do nothing. To fade into the background knowing that we gave up when they needed us most.  
Dan more-so than me, his love and conviction that he would not abandon his friends and those he cared about pushing me to want to give him everything I had to help him get to that place. I love my family absolutely, but it was a looser kind of affection, I felt sad knowing that something may have happened to them, but it was a far away pain, one that would pass with time and not haunt me for nearly as long as it would clearly affect Dan if something happened to his family.

Hushed whispers turned to a jittery sort of energy, a clarity as we went back downstairs, pacing the living room while Dan pulled out his notebook, finding a fresh page where we could make lists and plan our futures carefully.

-Raid the houses around us.  
-Gather everything from the gas station.  
-Find a map.  
-Get home.

“Do we want to go right away, or do we want to wait until spring?”

It was an important question and we needed to weigh those options carefully.

On one hand it was December, probably sometime in January by now, time was a fuzzy concept for us since we tended to sleep when we slept and wake up when the weather was good enough for it, our grasp of how many days were actually passing was light.  
The coldest months were still ahead of us, we could try to hit the road, maybe the day after tomorrow, once we’d cleared the entire ‘town’ and get a few hundred kilometres under our feet before the weather set to heavy upon us and we’d be forced to bunk down until it got better, but it was an added risk to that.  
Getting caught out in a storm, not being able to find any shelter at all. We’d gotten lucky finding the cave, the trailer, this cabin, I had no idea how much longer that luck would possibly continue.

On the other hand depending on how many fish we could catch, how much food the gas station had, what we could gather in the next few days it was possible we could stall out and essentially hibernate until March.

The sun was peaking up when we finally went back up the stairs, collapsing in bed, a calm settling over us, the hope now alive and burning with a fever pitch.

Fuck rescue we were going to make it out of here on our own.


	18. The Goodbye

It was a strange video, even for their channel.

But how could it be a normal one?

It had been nearly impossible to shoot, harder still to edit, just as hard to upload.

"I know Dan would probably want me to keep doing this.” Arin started, the video was similar to one Dan had done when talking seriously about his own past mental illness, sitting in the spare bedroom of his house, just him and the camera. He’d tried to do this many different ways but this was something he needed to do. 

Alone.

“I mean Game Grumps was something I started with John, and Dan- Dan was able to fill those shoes when John left. He’d- He’d tell me to replace him maybe, or to find something new but- This is so different. I'm sorry buddy but your shoes are just too big to fill." He holds up a pair of Dans scummy old sneakers and lets out a sad little laugh "I mean look at the size of these things!”

Arin chokes on the joke and looks down, it was a shitty attempt at humour that he was doing to just to and make it through the filming, anyone watching could tell by the slight bump in his movement that they’d had to edit out how long he’d sat there for, his eyes a little more red when he finally looked up again.

“I’m sure everyone has seen the news already about Dan’s flight, it’s been… It’s been a month since it went down and they- They’ve stopped looking for the missing passengers and we- We… I decided… I just can’t do this- Can’t do Game Grumps anymore after this. We uh, we’ll release what we’ve already recorded for you lovelies, Brian is uh- He’s going ahead with what they already have for Under the Covers as their final CD in memory to Dan. Ross and Barry… Yeah they have their own stuff to keep an eye out for but- but I’m going to be taking a long break to just…”

This time the video jerks oddly, like he’d gotten up but then they edited him back into the chair, his hair disheveled like he’d been pulling at it.

“This is hard for all of us guys, Dan was loved, Dan IS loved by everyone here just as much as you all love him and we just all need time. You all, and us too. Dan would tell us all to talk to someone, to tell people that we love them, to support each other right now, and I want everyone to do that for me, for all of us, and especially for him.” There were tears in his eyes now, ones that they didn’t bother to edit out. “Thank you all so much. We’ll always love you guys.”

“Goodbye.”

 

\---

I’d say we stopped counting days, but that would be untrue, days still mattered but instead of meandering plans to only make it to the next dawn we now had lists.

Daily chores, tasks, goals. 

A rough calculation of calories to survive until spring when set down in numbers, it seemed like it could be an obtainable goal.

Lists of what we had, what we needed, backup plans, and hundreds of “what ifs” jotted into the margins with more things added an already too large list to get it all done.

There was a certain clarity we could find in making lists, a weird relief of checking everything off that gave us a sense of satisfaction.

A new purpose.

Hope was something we were building in ourselves, skills we could put our trust in, faith in one another. 

We had lived.  
We would live.

This was not our end.

It was only the beginning.


End file.
